Let's Talk About Sonic's Stupid Friends 

I'm seeing a lot of people in the comments say things along the lines of, "It's because of 06." or, "Ever since Colors..." But, as I said in the video, this problem has been around for much longer than either of those. This really started with Heroes. Please do not employ selective memory to make this about the same complaints everyone has been talking about forever. This is a separate issue. Sonic's problems do not start with ST's reaction to 06. There have been many issues thought the entirety of the series. Let's not pretend nothing was wrong before 2010.

It infuriates me that the Sonic series has so many genuinely awesome character designs with cool stories of their own, yet they're barely ever used. They just stand there in cutscenes being caricatures of themselves now.

This is an effect of years of Sonic games being panned by critics and fans after the disastrous launch of 06 and the overwhelming success of Sonic 4 Episode I, which cemented to Sega that Sonic's large cast if characters should be erased, games have to pander to nostalgia, and the status quo has to be maintained. At the end of Generations, when all Sonic's friends show up to cheer him on, Robotnik asks "Who are they?!" and I shit you not, Eggman responds: "They are insignificant!". That's what the Meta Era of Sonic is, hatred for it's own IP. Even in the game that was supposed to celebrate 20 years of the franchise all Sonic characters are sidelined and all references to past games in the story stop after clearing Chemical Plant.

it really hurts that sega will not allow their characters to have any freedom to change and grow in their stories. they're squandering this cast of amazing characters and i dont understand it.

This is what I'd like to call the "Comic Book problem" because you literally see it there too lol; how every major Marvel or DC hero is just stuck in a status quo with no changes whatsoever. Peter Parker will never find happiness and settle down with MJ, Batman will never be able to move on from his parent's deaths and become emotionally open again, etc etc. When a series reaches a certain iconic status, the powers that be (the Execs) become way more resistant to change out of fear of alienating their current audience. In addition to that, comic books have multiple writers that come on and all of them have their own ideas on what the series should be, so any actual changes made are usually undone and reset because the new writer didn't like those changes and walked them back so they can do their own ideas. Stan Lee called this "the illusion of change" where he felt the key to writing a successful long-running series is to fool readers into thinking there is change happening (and satisfying their long term investment) while not actually changing anything (so as not alienate the older audiences). Sonic has kind of fallen into this sadly, probably due in part to how the reception of the 2000 games were received. There was tons of experimentation and attempted change in the 2000's, but that simply alienated a lot of the older audience as many felt it deviated way too far from the series foundation. You yourself touched upon that in your Sonic Adventure 2 review where you felt that it was pretty far removed from what Classic Sonic was, and while you were fine with that, there was more than a vocal group of people who weren't. The punchline of Sonic in the 2000's was "Sonic doesn't need a story" and how people wanted things to be "how it used to be" and "simpler" and the last decade Sega basically walking back on all of the changes made in the 2000's in an attempt to address those complaints. So now everything is simple and characters are way more two-dimensional so as to not alienate older and newer audiences; the whole Sonic brand became way more homogenized for the sake of accessibility. So if you were in this series for long-term storytelling and satisfying character arcs, Sega more or less gave those people the middle finger for the sake of mass appeal. This is why I can't even be bothered to get excited about the future of the series because even Frontiers didn't really...progress anything about these characters, it more or less just took them back to where they were after Sonic Adventure 2. It certainly PROMISES things are gonna change, but I highly doubt Sega or Sonic team are gonna allow Ian Flynn to really make any sweeping changes to the series, and even if he was allowed to, I can guarantee that it would receive tons of pushback because that's just where Sonic is at as a franchise now. It can't change anything without pushing people away nor can it progress in an meaningful way, so everything is just stuck in limbo so as to not rock the boat in either way. Even when the IDW comics are pretty self-contained, people are STILL complaining because the characters don't act a certain way. The Sonic series has become as stagnant and boring as a typical American Comic Book series and that's kind of sad. Good video as usual though, but yea I've realized this for a long ass time. Its why I just invest my time in stuff like Manga since that's way more gratifying for me to read.

i 100% agree with this sentiment, there is literally so much story potential with these characters, one of which i really think has a lot of potential is oddly enough rouge In a lot of games and stories rouge is seen to have an obsession with jewelry and gems and such, ive always had this potential plot line in my head where rouge somehow finds that there’s more to life than just the materialistic objects such as jewels, and that could even open up more character moments with her and other characters like the rest of team dark or even knuckles it’s ideas like these that really want me to write my own interpretation of the sonic games or certain game events

Looking back, Jesus Christ, it’s ridiculous how 15 years later we are STILL seeing the effects of 06’s failure on the franchise.

Omega is the only character that hasn’t regressed because he’s too simple to mess up. So by that logic, Omega is objectively the best Sonic character.

Sonic Team: Alright, Magic Conch, what should we do with our vast cast of beloved characters? Magic Conch: Nothing. ALL HAIL THE MAGIC CONCH

Sometimes I wonder when the last time a personality of significant renown used the phrase “Stupid Friends” in regards to Sonic’s friends UNironically was. I think it’s been out of vogue for like half a decade.

The Sonic series can be summed up as " has a lot of potential but is never met"

I would like to see eggman’s relationship with Metal explored a little more now that sage is in the picture. Maybe he starts seeing metal as a son or metal shows signs of jealousy and/or animosity towards sage. Idk how that would pan out but i think it would be interesting

Yes! Thank you!! I'm so tired of these characters just being used as set pieces or caricatures of themselves

They reason why all of the characters are static and are in a constant loop is because every character life is based around sonic nowadays .Most characters can’t stand on their own without him. They don’t care really about the characters themselves they are used as marketing tool because they are popular and just background characters to support sonic.Sonic friends are important when used correctly stop putting every sonic character in every story with no substantial reason or cause you know they will make money.

I've been thinking about this quite a lot myself. It makes sense that Sonic and Eggman would remain static characters. That's the whole point. Sonic and Eggman are representative of two diametrically opposing extremes; Sonic's obsession with absolute personal liberty, and Eggman's obsession with absolute authority. For either of them to wane in the extremity of their positions would compromise the thematic role they serve. The rest of the cast however, were designed to compliment Sonic and Eggman, to be influenced by and react to their place in the world and consider how their ideas can factor into their own lives. Because when you think about it, both Eggman AND Sonic's lifestyles are pretty unsustainable. Eggman's goes without saying, but Sonic's attitude of doing whatever he wants no matter how reckless with little forethought on purpose, fully knowing how foolish it is for the sole purpose of exercising his freedom is an attitude that has on multiple occasions almost gotten him killed. And it probably will at some point, though I doubt we'll ever see that in the series. Not that I need to. But with that said, the role Sonic serves in the series' story is very similar to Kamina from Gurren Lagann if you've seen that show (spoilers for Gurren Lagann in the next sentence). He's a bold trail-blazer who burns extremely brightly and inspires others with his charisma, charm and worldview, but exactly those characteristics are what end up getting him killed in the end, leaving everyone behind who took a piece of him with them to carry on and make something more sustainable out of his ideals than he ever could. The supporting cast of Sonic are all various degrees along the spectrum of extremity at the ends of which lie Sonic and Eggman. Most characters in Sonic can be put on a grid with two axes of whether they represent order or chaos, and whether they represent a positive or negative skew on that concept. Knuckles for example, is juxtaposed against Sonic in that his whole thing is his sense of responsibility; a positive form of order, which also sets him in contrast with Eggman, who's form of order manifests as control. Tails is a positive skew on chaos as freedom, but he's a character who's too crushed by anxiety and a lack of self-confidence to really make effective use of what his skills afford him. Over time, he ends up Becoming a character who's just as influential to others as Sonic was to him as we see with Marine in Rush Adventure and with Cream in Advance 3 when he rebuilds Gemerl as her robot butler. The major difference between Tails and Knuckles is that Tails has essentially had a completed character arc (although it's been horribly messed up in recent years with Unleashed, Forces and Frontiers). He went from a meek little kid who wanted to be like Sonic to someone who can not only stand toe to toe with his idol, but has his own strengths of character and abilities which make him a hero in his own right. Knuckles meanwhile, has been in stasis since Adventure 1. The idea with Knuckles is that his solitude has left him unfulfilled despite his resolve to fulfill his duty, and absolutely nothing has been done with that Since Adventure 1. Games after that in the 2000s liked to ignore that for the sake of getting him in more stories. But I think the position they put him in as a treasure hunter is a good end goal to work towards for Knuckles. Or, more specifically I think a good place to work him towards would be as an archeologist who goes around preserving ancient relics to make sure history stays intact so nobody can forget the past like how the truth about how horrible the ancient echidnas were was lost to time until Adventure's plot uncovered it. Only problem is that they've jumped to what feels like the end of a character arc without actually giving us the arc. They kind of began setting up for it with Rouge's character in SA2 who very well complimented him with her own skew on chaos as a form of freedom as a thief who indulged in her own fancy regardless of the impacts her work had on anyone else. But it went nowhere ultimately, as she got way more tied up in Shadow's plotlines after they decided to bring him back. In any case, it is crucial to the series that characters like Tails and the rest of the supporting cast exist, because without them, Sonic and Eggman cease to function properly. The whole point of them is the influence they have on the world around them, hence why they're static characters; they represent ideals which other characters take pieces of with them and integrate into their own lives. The only problem is that so few characters have actually managed to accomplish that in the series history with any semblance of consistency.

Funny how out of all the Mario characters to choose from, you went with Wario, who is ironically the most fleshed out of all of them between the Wario Land and Waioware series.

ONE thing I miss is the subtle change in character like how knuckles is more willin to work wit & act more freindly wit his team in heroes. Actually I'd say many of the characters learn the value of teamwork in that game & Team rose I feel is bout Amy teachin cream/big to be more darin & adventurous to reach their goals. but back to my og point, Shadow acts more chill/mellow & overall hyperfocused on any task at hand in 06 goin forward in the games. Tails may not have story importance in 06 but how he acts shows his growth from the past 3 games. I teul think Silver is the 1 character who should've NEVER come back cus not only does it betray a vital part of his character arc in 06 but they can't think of ANYTHIN new to do wit his character since bringin him back & doin the same "save the future by goin to the past" shit endlessly & he jus sucks.

I think it boils down to the trauma Sega/Sonic Team has had with the reception of those 2000s games. “Sonic’s Stupid Friends” is now a meme but it used to be a condescending thing to say about one of the states of the middling reception of those games. And the usual ST thing to do when it comes to criticism is just them not to do anymore rather than improve. Things seems to be looking up in a post Frontiers world but I think that’s just why Sonic Team has been weird about their characters for sooo long.

I don't think the characters are the real issue here. The real issue is that the wrong lessons are always being learned. For many, it feels like the "stupid characters" thing is the case because the execution of ideas in the franchise are frequently awful. First we have Heroes, the major takeaway from it being the controls (more specifically, how it handles.) Then we get the Shadow game, built on horrendous ideas with equally atrocious execution. Sonic 06 having a weird "inverse" where the ideas are actively rock-solid (Project 06 goes above and beyond to show that), but we of course know what happened there. Not just mainline games, either. Shuffle was the ONLY true Sonic party game, Chronicles was the ONLY RPG, and so on. SEGA scrapping ideas and abandoning potential because of near-constant poor execution and decisions seem to be the real problem.

Sonic's friends and allies are actually very important to him, no MATTER the continuity east OR west. >:(

I miss character arcs so bad...

Mario characters might not have any major growth but they arguably feel more "real" than Sonic characters in spinoffs like the RPG games where guys like Bowser get a lot more personality and character development

Of all the Mario characters to use as an example of them not being real characters, Wario is a horrible example to use, of ALL the Mario cast you had to pick the REAL CHARACTER with an ORIGIN and VARIED RELATIONSHIPS. Made a whole-ass video about that and this is what the world rewards me with smh

Ok sure everyone calls Sonic’s friends “stupid” but it’s ok where Mario has millions of characters and yet most multiplayer games slots are made of copies with babies, metal, and costume versions of existing characters.

Something I think is interesting about Sonic himself is that he already represents the pinnacle of himself and his own lifestyle. That is why he is the catalyst for change. He is already "perfect" and inspires other people to become better to be like him. That's why we see Tails wanting to grow out of his shadow, Amy training to impress him and protect the people she loves, Knuckles learning to exit his island and dig treasure to cope with his loneliness. It's why Eggman and Sonic being "frenemies" is so popular despite it being misused as a form of comedy. (Actually, in Amy's case, I think it's really interesting that her vigor allows her to approach Shadow and inspire him with her own nurturing personality instead of Sonic's charismatic self-righteousness.) It's not *bad* to eventually grow into a static character, but we've seen that every character so far has stopped in an uncomfortable place, in the middle of an arc. They have not become their "pinnacle" or "ultimate" self yet and don't embrace the potential of their established themes or relationships.

Totally agree, and while i think the IDW book has had a lot of moments that grabbed me (mostly during the Metal Virus), I wish they allowed the characters to grow and change more than they are currently. I'm sure Ian wants them to as well, but SEGA says no.

I blame the fanbase unironically saying "Sonic's Stupid Friends" in the 2000s. Thanks to the "Durr this is a Sonic game why am I playing as Knuckles in this level" sentiment, Sega left the supporting cast in the dust and became scared to ever use them, even to this day kinda. I hate how vocal the "nothing needs to change" crowd was in the 2000s, and it kinda extended outside of Sonic, like I remember when Luigi's Mansion was hated for being different from a mainline Mario title, or when Wind Waker was trashed for not being a gritty Zelda game.

"If you're not gonna do anything with these characters, might as well not having them there." I mean, outside Tails, the 2010's have done that. Only two games have real stories, Colors and Lost World, and they have no new characters. Generations is a anniversary title with no real story, so the gang shows up for the birthday party but that's it. Forces is the only outlier of having all the characters be nothing but background scenary, but even that story has Sonic being this paragon inspiring a new character in the Avatar, even if I found the characterization there to be horrendous.

Absolutely agree, Tails' arc in Sonic Adventure made him my favorite character. There's so much storytelling potential in these characters.

Silver is the really confusing one for me. Like it’s implied in 06 at least that Omega is shut down, but around, and Shadow was captured, but alive. Even then you could rewrite those events, but like why not have a story with Silver in the future where he sees Shadow as sort of a mentor with learning all these chaos powers. And I mean Omega really could use some love at this point, he’d be a cool side kick as well. I feel like every other character we know wouldn’t make sense to be there, as much as I love Blaze, I like her being in the Sol Dimension instead of the future, but who knows. Also how cool or maybe not cool would it be to see how Shadow reflects on losing all of his friends due to his immortality and especially Rouge who should be his best friend Sega! But I digress

If you don't like the idea of these characters becoming static, do you want them to be recurring characters at all? Because Sonic Team's priorities are never to make a character and continue following them and their journey throughout the series. Apart from Shadow, they specifically make use of one-and-done character introductions and arcs, because they're never fully committed to one specific direction, much like the games themselves. If these characters are actually bad as static characters, but Sonic Team's direction for the series is incompatible with following up on their alternative growth, then that just seems like an impasse with the series' nature itself.

I feel like this is a consequence of the past when people developped a weird hate boner for Sonic's friends, believing they were only getting in the way or that only Sonic mattered. So SEGA pretty much forced them into the sidelines.

I feel the word ‘Potential’ is as much of a buzz word as ‘Momentum’ in this series. They keep teasing the fans of the ideas of Sonic, but never capitalize on them. And even if they do it’s either done better by other franchises or they do it poorly, y’know?

Flanderization of Sonic characters is so funny to me. It's borderline criminal in how far they took it: Tails went from an emotionally vulnerable tinkerer, to a 200IQ kid genius who can rival Eggman but still lives in Sonic's shadow... Knuckles went from a dogmatic opportunist with ultimately good intentions, to just being a name and a gruff voice... Amy had a chance to break free of her tropey nature but ended up being an anthropomorphic Tina Fey... Shadow's brooding personality hiding trauma and insecurity was stripped, so he could be ironically edgy and whisper the same five lines... Cream never even had a chance to be more than a cute design... Blaze got it worse than anyone else, though, and it baffles me how they had the perfect rival for Sonic after the events of SA2 and did absolutely nothing with her.

I’ll play devil’s advocate and say that reinterpreting the characters this way isn’t necessarily a betrayal of the series’ *core,* but rather a betrayal of what the series *was* in the Adventure era. Right at its inception, Sonic 1 had very simple and functional characterisation and motivations. Sonic CD continues this, with Sonic, Amy, Metal and Eggman serving more of a symbolic role in the story rather than a character-driven one. It’s in Naka’s sequels, Sonic 2 and 3, that they slowly started inching towards more character-driven stories. Even then, it’s very light and mostly in the background. It’s really Sonic Adventure that chose to put a massive emphasis on who these characters are and how they relate to each other. With that said, I don’t think the story and characterisation was a huge part of what made the game a success back in 1999. If Sonic Team instead chose to take more of a Sonic Colours approach to characterisation back then, I doubt most players and critics would’ve minded too much. Sonic Team resolved to turn the Sonic cast into much more simplified caricatures after years of being told by critics and gamers that it’s what they *should* do. To say that it’s a betrayal of the series is really just asserting the opinion that the Adventure direction was the *correct* one for the series, which I’m sure plenty of people inherently disagree with. Ultimately, I’m down with the more detailed, anime-ish character portrayals from the 2000s, or the more surface level, Mickey Mouse style portrayals from recent years, as long as they’re both *executed* well. The Sonic series has been trying to be all things to all people lately, and it leads to them not capitalising on the full potential of either style imo. Honestly, the VN game they put it out is probably the most charming and natural these characters have been in years for me.

in defense to Unleashed, the characters there still seemed to have some interaction with the story instead of being cartoons, the whole NPCs were full of life and Tails was very useful with his contacts and obviously being able to take Sonic and co. to the other countries and fight Eggman 2 times on the way... (making it seem that he was only scared because, well... gaia spawns looks like nightmare creatures?)

I think it would be at least serviceable if they just leaned into their single personality trait. Like, for Knuckles just lean into his naivete and stoicism, a gentle giant of sorts. It's ok for them to be static because at some point they don't need major development. I don't think they need character arcs, but just more adventures, I just don't want them to be side lined forever

Although it doesn't have nearly as many recurring characters, I think the Kirby series handles them really well. If Sonic's friends were used more like Kirby's friends (appearing sometimes as bosses, allies, playable characters or just as part of the story at specific points) that could also work well.

Never liked the idea of Metal Sonic being treated as "Eggman's Son"

Pariah is _really_ procrastinating having to talk about the story of the Western-written Sonic games... XD

I do disagree with you somewhat when it comes to Frontiers, at least when it comes to Sage and Tails character and Knuckles too. The only character I have a problem with now is Amy, despite her being my favorite. I feel out of everything you addressed, Amy, Rouge, Shadow, Silver and Blaze got it the worse, or poor Cream as well, since Cream's development after Generations can be sumned up as 'who?" my issue in regard to Amy is that her character change was due to a bigger problem, she didn't change because she naturally came into her own, she did so because Sega 180 her character for the sole purpose of opeasing fans who disliked her, which is not how you improve a character in writing. In so many reviews I see people say Amy has improved, but never really see anybody describe who she is as a character, at least when she was a fangirl, just saying she was a fangirl was describing a character, the fact all anybody can say about her character nowadays is 'she isn't obsessed with Sonic anymore' just means they are proving Amy has no character, since she doesn't have features, they can describe. Nowadays, aside from Sonic Prime and IDW she's just a boringly competent plain jane. She's basically Sega's version of a modern-day Disney protagonist, where they take criticism of what they think is wrong with the character, remove that character then give them a 180 for the sake of an agenda. Which is how developers change characters, it's like if Nintendo decided to change Princess Peach from a Damsel in Distress to a badass woman who needs no man while her personality is stripped away just for the purpose to avoid her being a damsel, when all they need to do is deemphasize that aspect of her. For me it feels rather sexist because it is saying that a way to fix a female character is to strip them entirely of their character, when growth would be the more plausible solution. Frontiers Amy isn't bad, since the DLC may clear up a lot of the missteps, but right now she leaves a bad taste for me and doesn't feel like a character of natural change, just one who changed for the sake of pleasing others. And this is painfully obvious in how she's written, where now her only defining characteristic is that she's female. She literally lacks any traits or character flaws, since I don't think I've seen an instance where she has displayed any flaws, at least Frontiers addresses Tails and Knuckles flaws. I also find fans in general just overcriticize or react to everything the character did just to make it seem worse than it was, of course she had moments of being written badly, but honestly those instances were less than how often she wasn't. Or the fact people saw her temper as a bad thing, which to me fits this strange agenda people have where female characters having tempers leads to SJW rants about men and women dynamics. When how Amy's anger wasn't used to portray that. It baffled me more how Heroes was often used as the catalyst for saying she was bad, when Heroes Amy is grossly exaggerated, and the scene people point to isn't even what is actually happening. Especially when Sonic Battle is just her crush on Sonic from Heroes done worse and how anyone can say Heroes is worse Amy when Free Riders Amy exists, who is literally just Heroes Amy with the worst attributes amplified, she feels like the amalgamation of everything people disliked about her, as if a detractor wrote her based off of that in that game. When it comes to Rouge, I feel like her nature to tease people and more nuanced interactions with Team Dark and Knuckles are gone, since in Team Dark's case it feels like they are trying to make them less of a team and with Knuckles they have nothing relatable other than they can hunt jewels, unlike before where their competitive edge as treasure hunters caused them to butt heads. I miss the more teasing Rouge who could switch up her motives toward people depending on circumstance but wasn't totally evil. Or how Cream's entire character development just because a question mark, which is now a total summary of her character. They also seem to be stripping away Shadow's purpose too, since when he isn't being a parody of a edgy schoolyard bully he's just a loner with no friends, they literally can't decide who he is and I feel the only thing they rely on is his popularity. And Blaze needs to have more screentime again.

Yeah, Sega not realizing that perhaps the most popular aspect of the Sonic series is its characters is incredibly bizarre. I know you didn't like TMOSTH that much, but part of the reason a lot of people liked it was that the characters were allowed to be there and talk and stuff. Especially since most of the game is spent with these characters not being tied to Sonic.

I often don't say "Because it's easy that's why" because there is usually more nuance to why things are the way they are, but Sonic's characters and stories kinda feel like they are made that way because it's easier. After 06 and Shadow the hedgehog people started to think that the serious tone "isn't sonic" and then even if unleashed and Black knight were good in narrative for the most part, people started to be like "ugh again this 'deep' garbage. I liked when Sonic was just a silly cartoon" even if that wasn't really the case ever in games, so in colors they steered the wheel towards more wacky Saturday cartoon style, and those cartoons usually were episodes that didn't affect other episodes, and they stop with a "here we go again! :D Nothing was learned after all haha! Back to status quo!" which is kinda sad because it worked. Sonic was praised for not being what Sonic has been but what people thought Sonic was, a silly cartoon that is not to be taken seriously. Silly cartoon direction I think is what caused characters to become just a bunch of personality traits, and that was kept because it's easier when you don't have to change the characters. Another reason I can also believe is that SEGA is afraid to change the characters, like if you change a character too much people would think that "ugh the character is now different. That is not my (insert a character)" so to keep them unchanged doesn't risk them becoming lesser characters.

Insulting Wario is just one step too far. He has actual character and character arcs in his own games, that aren't represented well in the spinoffs and crossover games. For shame my suboptimal sir.

Speaking of the comics, I know this might get contorversial but I like the archie comics more than IDW because it felt like more stuff was going on, expanded the sonic universe and the characters to new terretories we haven't seen before and also more animal varieties that felt unique with the sonic universe. With the IDW characters sure they have their own arcs but it feels like they haven't done much with them after that and that the fall back a bit with their character (some of them). But otherwise great video and hopefully Sega and sonic team changes it but it's unlikely to happen

Literally went YES as you mentioned Metal Sonic I also wanna say for Cream to, in Sonic Battle she had her arc, learning that she HAS to fight or Emerl gets destroyed, yet she in IDW, 'I HATE fighting' I also HIGHLY agree with not having them pressent at all if they aren't going to do anything with them, otherwise, it seems they are treating things like a Saturday morning cartoon where everything resets the next episode and no character grows, I hate it, it's a massive disservice to the series These characters and their stories and personalities are part of what makes their world so damn interesting, they are what gives life to the series, WITHOUT the other characters, Sonic's World (or Mobius) feels freaking empty and that's what is has felt like for the past decade, it NEEDS to stop and they need to do things with EVERY CHARACTER, THEY *HAVE* TO!

Hopefully the upcoming Frontiers DLC with the added playable characters will change the static around Sonics friends as of late. I'm definitely excited to see what they come up with, but I don't want to keep my hopes to high! Even if the dlc isn't as good as expected, I know that the modding community will definitely be there to help smooth out the edges given what they've managed to do with the game so far.

Wouldn't mind another game in the style of Sonic Heroes. Maybe have several 2 Character teams with their own stories and their own levels. Sonic & Tails- Someone went way too far wrecking Eggman, so they try to figure out what's going on. Shadow & Rouge- Rouge's gem hunting gets Shadow injured and Omega captured. The duo bond while rescuing their robo-amigo. Blaze & Cream- While visiting Blaze's dimension, Cream volunteers to join her on an adventure to save her kingdom. Blaze is overprotective, but learns to let Cream grow as they journey together. Espio & Charmy- Vector is dealing with a client who hasn't paid his bill, and has sent his fellow detectives on a separate case. Espio uses his calm and patient demeanor to help teach Charmy about being more mature and responsible.

I dont mind a character not growing if their story is finished and if they dont regress the character, unfortunately sonic has been messing this up for a while

Unlike Mario Sonic is a very Story Driven series. Though Mario characters may be able to remain stagnant, Sonic characters shouldn't.

It's honestly down to whether SEGA/Sonic Team is willing to allow their characters to be real characters again. I can certainly see that Ian is trying to make this happen and I kind of hope he stays writing for games since even if maybe he doesn't get the Eastern style of story-telling, he at least has shown a profound understanding and deep-hearted care for the Sonic franchise as a whole. I'm perfectly understanding of how the character moments in Frontiers aren't exactly up to your standards, but this is more or less a repeat of how he handled taking charge in Archie hot off the Ken Penders era, and there he was certainly more free to give the mainline characters room to be actual characters along-side the comic originals compared to now where he has to walk on eggshells for simple things like - god forbid - having Shadow be a competent fighter (I remember hearing about how Flynn was openly frustrated about Shadow being forced to go down like a complete chump in the Metal Virus story arc). At least he was allowed to have Shadow NOT be a chao-bullying asshole in IDW; if he was forced to have the TSR promotional cartoons' version of Shadow, I'd hate to see where things would be now...

Really wish we had a sonic show that took all of the classic and modern game's stories, and picked out the best parts to create one consistent, well written story. It's something that would be great for new fans who want to get into sonic and learn about the characters, AND something that would great for older fans who want see MORE of their favorite characters doing cool things. Starting in the classic stories of Sonic 2 and 3 to evolving to more complex stories of SA1 and 2. The show would have a variety of different tones but they could all work well if done right(avatar: the last Airbender for example has both lighthearted and serious moments). One of the advantages of a long running show, compared to something like a 2 hour videogame or movie, is that there is more time to spend with the characters. There could be spotlight stories where we focus on a single characters and get to know them better. Many people attempt to make sense of the beast that is sonic game lore, but If you really look at it there are so many inconsistencies between games. Thats why I think a sonic show that adapts the stories from the games into a newer more focused story could work. I Know that this isn't very likely to happen but I've just been thinking about it for awhile and wanted to type it out.

Uh oh we’re getting more and more glimpses into his opinions on Frontiers’ story I agree the “arcs” in the game weren’t great, but I like to imagine the very inclusion of Flynn and the attempt to address certain elements/dynamics is a sign of better things to come

The main problem is that if you want a franchise to keep going indefinitely with no ending just have it keep going forever then you NEED to do 1 of 2 things 1, replace every character with other characters 2, creat a statud quo The reason for this is because there is a finite amount of directions you can take a character in terms of character progression, heck 80% of all possible character growth can be found in the tarot journey, This is very much agenst the goal of a franchise that wants to run forever because that means there would be no direction left for it to go after a while and when that happens people lose interest so the best thing is to have a status quo and lightly give character growth briefly before putting things to the status quo, that is if you dont want the franchise to ever end As to why sega didnt make sonic a franchise that was designed to run forever from the begining well i honestly think most video game developers during the early 90s and before likely thought video games as an inderstry would crash and die by the 2000s and become staple unchanging market much like the market for monopoly, chess or poker, i think they thought of them as games in that sense

Frontiers attempted to fix it but imma be brutally honest, Flynn didn't do a good job with the character arcs. Imma go through each character. Amy- Amy has been reduced to being very serious, she barely expresses her love for Sonic anymore, which IMO makes her character more bland. What makes this even worse is the bland voice direction she was given, making her sound like a middle-aged lady sometimes. Her whole "share love with the world arc" doesn't make sense, because she has always been doing that since Sonic Adventure 1 lmao. Despite what people say about Frontiers' Japanese script, I liked that she goal of wanting to improve herself instead. Knuckles- His personality is alright, it isn't reduced like how Amy's personality was, but what I find irritating is the character arc moment between he and Sonic. Sonic says he should go and explore more when Knuckles is speaking about his duties. But the thing is, Knuckles plenty of times, since sonic heroes have left the master emerald unguarded to explore with Sonic and friends. This shouldn't be an issue at all. So how did the Japanese script do it? The Japanese script makes it as if Sonic is encouraging Knuckles to explore his roots more in relation to the Master Emerald and the history of Angel Island. Tails- Tails is alright, but when he said "then I'm inconsistent" it seemed so out of character to me. Tails development felt unnatural as if it was coming from the complaint of fans rather than Tails himself. In the Japanese version, it was changed for Tails to realise there's things that only he can do, which gives him confidence, and the courage to go on his own journey. I find it that people praised Frontiers english script too much, and dunked hard on the Japanese one because it has awkward moments, but Kishimoto arguably did a better job with it, it's as if he saw that Flynn was forcing unneeded repeated changes in the characters.

My biggest problem with Sonics friends is...how they basically all became pretty much Sonic, but better. For example: In Sonic Heroes every speed character is basically just Sonic but with something extra on top of his abilitys. Amy is Sonic, but she gets to have her hammer abilities. Espio is Sonic, but he gets all that cool ninja stuff he can do, which makes him quite fun to play actually. And Shadow...Shadow is just 10 times better in comparison to Sonic in every single game we see him in. He is equally as fast as Sonic but he just uses chaos powers ALL the time without the need for chaos emeralds. And I'm gonna be honest: If you spam your OP stuff all the time without any hesitation it is far less cool in comparison to what it once was. Since the debut of chaos powers in Sonic Adventure 2, these abilities were special and cool. But since Shadow just started to spam these chaos control abilities non-stop since 06 WITHOUT an emerald, it's far less cool and far less special. For example: In Sonic Forces it's so goofy how they try to convince you that Sonic is the ONLY ONE who is capable to save the world from Doctor Eggman. But they let you play Shadow in the game and he is EXACTLY the same as Sonic...but they also show you in cutscenes that Shadow STILL just teleports around like it's nothing. So, why exactly do we even need Sonic for anything? Shadow is equally as fast as Sonic BUT at the same time, he just abuses chaos powers all the time. So why exactly is Sonic even the main character anymore? Why exactly are we playing as this weakling? Same with Silver. Silver is equally as fast as Sonic (not in gameplay, but we can't ignore the cutscenes which present him really OP either), but he gets his psychic abilities on top of that. Knuckles is roughly equally as fast as Sonic, but he can punch stuff really hard which again...Sonic can't do. So, if you compare Sonic to any other character in the series, it feels like we are always playing as the most basic of characters. There is nothing that actually makes Sonic special in any way. They all run REALLY fast. Is Sonic special because he MAYBE can run a bit faster in comparison to Knuckles or Tails? Personally, I have a theory: I think Sonic Team gave Sonic the boost to make him stand out again because they realized...Sonic, in terms of his abilities...is probably the most boring character in the series. So, they tried to make him stand out more by giving him the ability to just instantly go really fast. In Sonic Generations, they even made that ,,power-up" canon with the ending cutscene. That's fine I guess, but...well, in Sonic Forces they gave Shadow the ability to boost...and we can see that the custom character can keep up with boosting Sonic without any problem, so....the boost really is also nothing special anymore. And personally I just hate that. If Sonic is so extremely weak in comparison to any other character, it feels far less cool to actually...play as him. Because it always feels like Sonic needs to put a lot of effort into achieving stuff which other characters could do in seconds. There is nothing which makes him stand out except ,,I'm blue dabadedabadei~". Also, this comment is only about abilities and nothing about personality. Sonic, in my opinion, is the most appealing character in the franchise if he is characterized like in Black Knight or Secret Rings. So, I do get why we play as Sonic. It's not because of his capabilities but because of his personality.

Critics and gamers hate for Sonic's friends started way earlier as Sonic 2 when Tails was introduced, I remember people saying: ''Why they added that fox, Sonic is supposed to run fast and it'll just slow down him, he can't keep up the pace look at how bad his A.I is and how many times dies.''

Honestly yeah, the characters are stagnant to a degree, if they aren't reverted... Heck, this staticness and misunderstanding of character is depressing to a degree. If there's one thing I would definitely wanna see, it's something that was done in another franchise with Azure Striker Gunvolt. Knowing that their main character couldn't be used every game (And with positive feedback from the fanbase with the gameplay of another character), they actually made a dedicated spin-off for that character but labeled it the "Gunvolt Chronicles" (And then the story was some weird timeline alternative dimension stuff but that's not the point) I think Sega could definitely do something like the "Sonic Chronicles" (No, not the RPG) where the other characters can be focused on and they can be explored with their arcs, but Sonic Team's last attempt was Shadow the Hedgehog and then they were mostly scared of doing this kind of stuff for other characters again (I just want a Blaze and Silver solo game...)

Hello, Pariah. I'v watched some of your videos and I really like them, you share some points of view that I hadn't had, and now I watch SA1 and SA2 with other fricking eyes. Thank you so much also for doing the 'Definitive version of each Sonic game' video. Before I leave, I want to hear your opinion about the music in Sonic games. I'm in love with the music in Sonic games, and I want to hear your favourite ones, or what make them so good, or whathever other thing. But I really want to hear you talking about that. You made some of my rough days more happy because of your videos. Tysm, bye.

i feel like this video largely ignores frontiers. i know you address it, but you wave it off with your dislike of it while not really acknowledging that despite your personal taste, the issue with the franchise that you're talking about doesn't really apply. the consequences are yet to be seen, but its clear that the characters are changing from how they were in the 2010s, and they're going to be trying new things. (ie: tails is gonna adventure on his own, knuckles will leave his island for fun rather than for the purpose of JUST saving the world, amy just needs a breath of fresh air in general). its fine to have problems with the execution or direction, but it speaks to the fact that the franchise is at least *trying* to break away from the problem you named in this video also small thing but, silver and blaze have been getting some really neat development in idw. blaze consulted knuckles on their shared character trait of having a duty to protect something, and is learning to let herself enjoy life outside of that. silver is getting self conscious and realized that he wants a purpose *outside* of travelling back in time to fix things all the time. these arcs have consequences too, with blaze vacationing to sonic's dimension and silver sticking around in the past. it seems like they want the two of them to be more accessible for future stories and the way they've been going about that is by giving them new internal struggles that they want to resolve by sticking around in the main dimension/timeline for a while. i cant wait to see where it goes for them

Tbh I feel like we'll ever get to see the type of writing you're looking for simply because I see to many people over praise Sonic Frontiers way of handling it. I just hope they wont just listen to the satisfies Sonic fans and settle for the way things are and actualy try to handle things better.

i honestly believe that projared singlehandedly brought the decade of shit upon us with his sonic adventure 2 review

I completely agree. Sonic's friends have been static for a long, long time. And I think there's multiple reasons for this, some of which cannot be easily undone. So let's begin: I think the biggest reason is Sega's exit from the hardware market. You mention that the last game in which most of the characters received significant development was Sonic Adventure 2. Of course, we all know this is the last Sonic game released on Sega hardware. But the implications of that are deeper. When Sega has their own hardware, they know it'll sell. They know people love Sonic and will buy their consoles just for Sonic. They know Sonic will sell, so they don't have to make it sell, they can just make it and sell it. This creates an environment ripe for characterization and doing cool, new things, because "Why should I buy this new Sonic game? How is it different from the last one?" are probably the two most important questions the consumer is asking. This means the developers and the writers have to come up with new things so that people don't stop buying. This creates new stories, new characters, characterization, the works. But then Sega stopped making consoles, and, all of a sudden, that environment vanishes. Sega no longer has the guarantee of people buying a Sega console because Sonic's on it, nor of buying a Sonic game because they already have a Sega console. Now Sega has to make Sonic sell. Generally, universes don't sell video games. Character arcs don't sell video games. They're nice features, sure, but people buy games, generally, to play something they know they're getting into. So now the questions become "Why should I buy this Sonic game? Are these the same characters? Is it the same?" And, if they aren't, people don't buy. It might be a bit cynical of me to say, but the general consumer doesn't buy video games for video games, they buy video games for the brand. Sonic isn't a universe any more. Now Sonic is a Brand. Sonic has been a Brand since 2007. Initially, Sega still had their devoted fanbase. People still bought Sonic games. Heroes was good, back-to-3D-basics fun, so they felt confident to continue on the path they were on. And then the next two games were Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic '06. The former was trashed for it's edgy story, the latter was trashed for it's cringy story and glitches. It became embarrassing to like Sonic. Hell, Sonic became embarrassing. The games were bad, the brand was bad, even if that wasn't completely true. Is it any wonder the Adventure-style Sonic game died, when the excellent characterization in Shadow created from that style brought Sega embarrassment in the finale? Is it any wonder the Adventure-style Sonic story died, when it was horribly rushed and therefore terribly incomplete and filled with holes, leaving it disappointing, frustrating, and easy to rag on? Is it any wonder Sonic Unleashed was another back-to-3D-basics game? Another reason I would say is Pontac and Graff. To my knowledge, these are the guys who wrote every mainline game from Sonic Colors to Sonic Frontiers. I don't know their involvement in the Sonic Boom sub-series, however. The two biggest factors here is that they are both American, and they both knew nothing about Sonic when they got hired. To my knowledge, they're a comedy-writing duo. One of them watched some cutscenes from the games on RU-vid, but otherwise, they're pulling it out of nowhere. Is it any wonder, then, that the characters reverted to what they were before, when the writers writing them have no knowledge of them? No doubt Sega handed them something like a one-page document breaking down all the characters and said "Here, write this". How could they possibly know the stories behind these characters? The final reason I would say is Sega itself. Sega saw what happened when they made the Sonic universe on their own hardware: they had to exit the market due to financial trouble. Sega saw what happened when they made the Sonic universe on others' hardware: the games get panned and criticized. Then Sega saw what happened when they made the Sonic Brand on others' hardware: the games are well-received and sell. At the time, everybody loved Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Colors, and Sonic Generations. They also saw what happened with Archie, when a Sonic story kept spiraling without control or oversight: absurdity. Sega would be fools to have somebody walk into an office, say "I want to make a Sonic Story, not a Sonic Brand!", and not say "Well hold on there, let's think about it first". They would be fools not to cut stories and concepts and character arcs entirely. Because Brands sell. Stories do not. Not in video games, anyways. Unless you're Sony. So I believe due to the poor reception of a non-Sega audience of an inferior product (Shadow's bad translation, Sonic '06 in general), the hiring of ill-fitted writers, and the successes that do not include the deeper elements of lore, Sega must have some kinds of restrictions in place now on Sonic stories and Sonic games. It's the only way to protect their market, and to "make sure we get more Sonic games at all", at least, according to them. Of course, Sega is a stupid rich company, they could afford to take some chances, but it's not a logically sound financial choice, so they won't. And that's a real shame. I think that Sonic Adventure 3 would see Blaze reunite with Silver and an inter-dimensional romp, preluded by the Sonic Rush sub-series. It feels like that's the natural paths of their characters, at least, in my head, and I'm deeply saddened that, right or wrong, I will probably never know. An excellent video. Sorry for my essay. Thanks for inspiring me, I guess. I can't wait for you to destroy me in your reply (/joke).

I believe they’ll get a chance to shine. I’m an optimist, and a realist, but mostly optimist. I trust and believe in Ian Flynn’s capabilities to bring out the best in the characters in due time. I will also say, good video, much enjoyed the info.

i love Knuckles but man i hate how they basically write him as "dumb jackass who punches things really hard". for crying out loud he's the guardian of the Master Emerald and Angel Island not the Hulk!

I always found this criticism stupid. Like remember when the games people considered mid nowadays (ie Sonic 4) good and had “no friends” as a selling point? And compare that to now where we get hyped for something like playable Shadow in Forces or the DLC with Amy, Tails and Knux in Frontiers. I’m just glad for the most part people have moved on from that criticism and look forward to having more characters in the games again.

I think going forward having a small but rotating cast of characters for future games is ideal. Make the characters present have more...presence in the narrative and highlight something they could work on.

Sad thing is this did happen with some characters in Sonic x! Chris going through emotions about Sonic leaving is actually great and learned to accept Sonic leaving, Amy had a mini arc and learned that instead of stalking sonic she could be a hero to, Tails and his relationship with Cosmo in season 3, basically being a mentor to her and being a ship leader which also helps Cosmo herself grow to. Both heroes had to make hard decisions including Tails having to sacrifice her. To the point where Tails lost belief in Sonic, and not sure how he grew from that if he did, it may be a major undercooked character arc if it’s not a reset like everyone thinks. Anyway, He’s brave enough to believe in his abilities to do them from his previous arcs so now he learns to go forward with his own decisions. The sad things almost all these arc have been reconned in some way at the end of their story arc. (Except for Chris & Cosmo and maybe Tails (most think that Tails just resets at the end but not sure if that’s true or not.))

13:15, thank you! Silver only appears for like sports games and that is all... if it's not something to do with the future.

It's funny you mention Mario characters being just caricatures, considering that the Mario RPGs actually do a great job at adding depth to existing characters and creating cool arcs with new characters, even if there's no progress from game to game (mostly because the characters from the previous games don't show up in later entries with any plot significance, and every new game is a new setting, with a new story and new characters)

From Ian Flynn's statements, there are very very strict guidelines put in place for the way you can personify these characters. I definitely do believe SEGA and/or Sonic Team is trying so hard to keep these characters fundamentally static but i cant for the life of me understand how this helps sales or anything.

Its weird that in nearly every sonic game a new character is introduced. Even in the spinoffs.

You can blame a lot of this on the fan response to 06. Sega took the complaints about "Sonic having too many friends" to heart and started to make the games mostly focus on just Sonic. You know, instead of the actual problem which was poor management.

Metal Sonic is my favorite character out of the Sonic Cast because of his theme of being a doppelganger is flawless, but besides from heros or the comics, there haven't really been a lot to grow on that. Dude is badass but damn I want him to have a character arc.

Baffling? I don't think it's even that complicated: SEGA, as in the "real" SEGA, the one that made the classics many of us grew up with, the one that was willing to take a loss just to style on the competition, and most importantly, the one that at least managed to be more than literally just a name that could be shuffled around inside a corporation without any meaning attached to it whatsoever, _that_ SEGA died when it was devoured by Sammy, a corporation that, to this day, makes most of it's bread with pachinko machines. I mean, not only is their business model basically exploitation, and not only were they primarily interested in using SEGA's name to obscure their more scummy practices (even if that means reducing it to the aforementioned literally meaningless name), but even their intentions for Sonic from the start were completely different from SEGA's, all but completely divorced from the games altogether, and yet it's baffling that modern Sonic feels like a betrayal? ...yeah, I hate to break it to you, Knucklehead, but Eggman lied.

I do agree that the characters can grow more but I also think there's a limit to how far a character can evolve or change until they become unrecognisable. That's why I'm mostly okay with a character like Shadow continuing to struggle with his own autonomy. Not that he goes back to having no agency but, his resolve to follow his own path being constantly tested in different ways. It's a cool way to develop his personality. Small developments like his relationship with Rouge & Omega would still be welcomed though. Or, like you said, developing Sonic & Amy's relationship, or Silver growth, etc. Giving them active roles in stories would also help.

Imagine if Silver or Team Chaotix got their own games.

Seems like, nowadays, a character can only have an arc when they're introduced. At this rate, we're gonna need a lot of new characters.

I don't have any new conversation to inspire, or profound disagreements to express about in this comment. However, I really wanted to leave a comment for y'all in the Sonic community... I fully agree with all of Pariah's points here, nothing to add! Thank you for voicing our opinion so articulately and with a compelling video. Keep up the great unique commentary content!

rouge 🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵 🍑💨🥵

Sonic's friends in Frontiers don't have any big character arcs, but it seems like the story of this game was written the way it was to allow them to happen in future titles (hopefully)

I blame Ken Penders

I think Sega is playing it too safe and not really understanding what people liked and don't like about alternate playstyles honestly.

Sonic Frontiers will have DLC where Tails, Knuckles and Any are going to be playable with a new storyline. So maybe your concerns with them might be addressed at the end of the year

This is an overlying problem with Sonic as a franchise. They made everyone and everything as bland and basic as possible because they’re more concerned with Sonic the brand mascot than Sonic the universe. Everything is so they can have the best brand recognition possible (Hence why Green Hill keeps showing up) and so they can plop anyone into any scenario or collab because money. They did this for business accessibility. This is why there is no consistent lore, no name for the world, why everyone is one note and static.

i think i found the cultprit, there's a video entitled "Why isn't Sega overprotecting of it's intellectual property?" that kinda explains why they allow sonic fan content to exist, but also the reason of why the quality of recent official sonic games are questionable

I feel like the problem SEGA has run into is a common problem with long running franchises. Sometimes it's just really hard to think of new material for these characters to grow from. Yeah sure, we as humans never really stop growing and learning but sometimes when writing characters there's a high point for a given character but we can't just end there because the series has to keep going and the character has to keep appearing because we like them so now they either just hang in the background or slowly become a loose idea of what the character was rather than who the character actually is. I understand why they mostly flanderized the cast, Shadow the edgy "doesn't have friends" hedgy is much easier to write than Shadow the character that has an active part in the plot and has things happen that develop him further. Don't get me wrong though I still don't like it and I still think there's room for these guys to grow. I really don't think it's right for Tails to peak only 9 years into his now near 31 year run and that's the *longest* example I have.

Its sad how any of these characters can improve and develop but Sega is stuck with Sonic/Eggman hero and villain thing. Tails, Knuckles and Amy at least had something in Frontiers (that needs to see how that goes), but Shadow, Silver, Blaze and specially Metal Sonic and Cream, have nothing for years, or worse, they removed what made them interesting.

I understand that your feeling on the character arcs in Frontiers doesn't seem to be all that great and I think that's understandable. But, this whole video is framed as if Frontiers just didn't happen at all and sonic team just isn't trying to make these characters mean something again when that is very clearly not the case. Sonic team seemingly has taken the long route in giving these characters more meaning, showing real dedication to the characters. Instead of changing the main cast to how they used to be automatically, they chose to contextualize their return to form by playing off of the many years where their characterizations were not well done or given much importance. An integral theme that permeates all throughout sonic frontiers is moving on to new things, like the kocos moving on to the afterlife, sage moving on from her previous mindset, knuckles wanting to move on to new things, tails and amy wanting to go on to their own adventures, and the antithesis to all this which is the end. Very clearly Frontiers is about establishing a basis for the main cast to go on to "new horizions" where likely they will grow themselves and embark on adventures that will mark changes in the rest of the cast.

I agreed with you till you talked about sonic prime Worst depiction if sonic in a long time

I like Frontiers' arcs but they're not exactly even arcs, just the setup for some arcs, but I'm excited to see where they'll go. As for Silver, it'd be cool if he decided to just stay in the past, that would be interesting development.

You're talking about Amy, Knuckles ant Tails as id Frontiers didn't happen. Even Sonic changed in that game, Eggman was by far the one that really had a change. As for IDW MEtal Sonic in there is far far better than the games, he's literally a different character there, Shadow is back to what he was in 06 for the most part, Amy is no longer just a Sonic fangirl and that's it, etc.

"Let's Talk About Sonic's Stupid Friends" he says as he puts emphasis on 3 rivals in the thumbnail.

BIG THE CAT IS NOT STUPID!!!!!! He is very dumb. Also his story with froggy is tear pulsingly sad and the best written story in the series!!!!!!!!!!!!! (On a more serious note, it may be the best love story (if you can call it that) in the series but that isn’t a very high bar to pass).

The reason why they havent grown a lot because they want to focus on Sonic Really hate how storytellers focus on the main character and not giving more spotlight to the allies, like if people like the others than the main character, thry should put the focus on THEM FORREAL I AGREE WITH YOU IDW and Prime make characters feel they're a developing character.

People don’t bring this up because it isn’t a problem. I don’t know when some fans got it into their heads that the Sonic series is some ongoing story or whatever. Shadow is like the only character that has actually developed in the games. No, Tails doesn’t count because his development happened in Adventure, the first game in the series that really tries to tell a story. Prior to that, any character he had was relegated to game manuals. Background information. Guys. The Sonic series isn’t the same like something like Kingdom Hearts or something. It is not an ongoing story between games with arcs and characters changing and such. Sonic is meant to be an evergreen series. A series you can fully understand by playing any game at any time really. These characters never “stopped growing”. They never were growing in the first place. At most, they go through a character arc in their introductory game, and they stay that way. And this isn’t a bad thing. That’s just the type of series this is.

I don't fully agree with what you say abut Mario characters if you look at the rpgs you would see that Mario characters can be characters.

This is unfortunately something that is an inevitability with any long-running franchise that uses a recurring ensemble cast. When a franchise is young and new, it's a lot less risky to write meaningful character growth because there's no guarantee the franchise has longevity to it. But as the series goes on, it becomes less of a "story" and more of a brand -- and brands thrive and recognizability and the familiar. Peter Parker is never allowed to have a truly happy personal life, Bruce Wayne is never allowed to come to terms with his parents' murder, etc. Unless you do constant reboots, or are an anthology franchise with a new cast for every story (Final Fantasy, Silent Hill, etc.), your characters can't stray too far from what the general public knows them to be. Because that wouldn't be "on brand." So Knuckles has to just be a dumb meathead. Amy has to just be "the girl." Shadow has to just be Vegeta. It's a sad thing to see, but it was always going to happen sooner or later.

I may have a crack theory on why the characters have been made to have a status quo to never be changed. I believe the reason why SEGA doesn't do character arcs anymore is because they now are far too scared of the reactions of the fandom. Ever since "Shadow the Hedgehog" and "Sonic 2006" SEGA has been constantly bullied by the fans saying that things are too edgy or that all the series should be is Sonic vs Eggman like it was in Sonic 1 and 2, that "Sonic's stupid friends" and stories that try to be deep or at least try to say something that is even slightly removed from Sonic vs Eggman is bad. The 2000s was considered the "dark Age of Sonic" and the fandom bullied SEGA all the time even though they put all their hearts in making those stories, they were not very good at writing but they still tried hard and that's how we got stories like Gamma and arcs like those for Amy, Tails, Shadow and more, but because the games unfortunately came out very badly people started to find even the slightest problem gigantic and so we came to the point were we had things like "Sonic was never good" or "Sonic had rough transition to 3D". When Sonic Colors came out the fans applauded the game for giving us back the classic Sonic vs Eggman stories with no magic, no "stupid friends" and no edgyness (a.k.a. characters going through arcs). Being bullied for trying hard to make good stories and then being praised for writing a bland story with bad comedy must have broken them, saw that that was what people wanted and then gave it to them. Gave it to the until they got sick of it and the gave it some more. Then let's not forget that on the other side of the fandom the Archie comics were going completely off the rails with crazy stories that took the characters into completely ridiculous directions and the whole thing got out of control, SEGA must have felt the need to protect their property from further damage to its image or it would be dead by now. In the end, what caused all this was the extreme course correction since SONIC '06 and the Dark Age desperately trying not to repeat the disaster of those games by staying as far away from them as possible. Ironically, the kids that grew up with the Dark Age instead of the classics are those that now praise the stories where SEGA put the most heart into because they feel nostalgic for them and can see the potential those stories have, unlike the fans that grew up with the classics that at the time view those games as a departure from what they were used to. Kinda like what happend to the Star Wars prequels in a way. Sorry for the long post.

What a misleading title. It's not about Sonic supporting cast being pushovers in narratives (ok, it kinda is), but it's about their stagnation. What a load. Anyway, the cynical answer is that they won't truly evolve further, and Sonic as the corporate mascot he is, will stay in that status quo it found itself it. And if a new writer, be Flynn or whoever more competent,, works with the characters it's very unlikely they will attempt to change the series much. And honestly? That all started with Shiro Maekawa. He is the guy who introduced many of the plot threads you mentioned, and he is also the guy who stopped developing the characters further, sans his little pet Shadow. After all, he wrote Tails and Knuckles as "partners" ( sidekicks) to Sonic, but he never developed them to begin with. II'm sure he had to include them because that's what the higher ups wanted. In Heroes, those two show up to assist Sonic with no expansion to their character. Only Shadow developed because Maekawa is his creator, so he felt comfortable writing for him. By 06, when Sonic Team hired writers like Kiyoko Yoshimura or Ken Pontac, nobody truly changes either. Hell, Tails starts his regression with Yoshimura. Maekawa mentioned in an interview that Sonic Team has a character template for the characters and he had to work with that. Dunno how that worked for Yoshimura and Pontac, but whatever. And IDW, we know the deal. If anyone still has hopes for the series's stories, good for them. I just see Sonic for what it is by this point: a series with episodic chapters that can be enjoyable at times. Decent video Pariah. You wrote it better than Chaomix and Characters In Depth, as usual.