I actually think that the cast of (obscure as this is) Sonic Drift 2 is pretty much perfect:Flake wrote:If they could have extra characters in ala Sonic Advance, that'd be okay. They did a great job in that game of keeping the roster small and making the characters distinguish themselves.
But that's one successful 'Sonic and his Friends' title out of how many abject failures?
Sonic and his classic self is all we need playable for this game. Knuckles, Tails, and (maybe) Amy is all we need in the back ground.
Sonic
Tails
Knuckles
Dr. Robotnik
Metal Sonic
Fang
Amy Rose
You have the inseparable Sonic & Tails, and of course the indispensable Dr. Robotnik. Knuckles, who at this point is completely established as being on the Sonic side, but susceptible as always to being tricked by Dr. Robotnik. Metal Sonic, who makes the perfect rival/nemesis to Sonic (the whole Shadow thing was always just too arbitrary, with his allegiances contingent on things that were always far too complex for me to ever care about -- Metal Sonic is so much more simple and effective). Fang, who's a neat little wild card in that he's entirely in it for the money/spoils and isn't a travesty of hentai-encouraging character design like his modern equivalent Rouge -- he makes for a great comedic character who can actually be a real part of the action instead of just distracting from it. And then Amy Rose who makes a great "damsel in distress," but can still fuck things up from the inside-out so with her hammer (like in Sonic Adventure) so as not to be offensively submissive to players who are more sensitive about gender roles.
You could add other characters, but they really just aren't necessary... I mean, I happen to think that Vector and Espio have really awesome character designs and all, but I think the whole series would be better if the team found a compromise where they didn't have to completely relegate the Sonic games to just having two characters like the fans seem to be asking for, but could have a small cast of characters to work with and really make fans care about them.
