He has an instashield. He can destroy the orbinauts in Launch Base zone without geting hurt. 'Nuf said.

Every character is a more or less branched knockoff of Sonic, and without him the series would fall apart, or even had started to begin with. Give him more credit.

I don't know, I think he has enough really.

He has: Spin Attack, Spin Dash, Intsashield, Homing Attack, Light Dash, Light Speed Attack, Somersault Combo, Bounce Attack and Tornado Attack. And more.

Its just that Sega hasn't figured out how to put them all on two buttons.

I'm fairly certain that the Instashield has since been supplanted by the Homing Attack.

As for the Tornado attack, I'm fairly certain that was a one...okay, a two-shot move that probably won't see much more use. I could be wrong, though. But that's my two and a half cents on the matter.

I don't think Sonic's alleged lack of abilities are to blame for any dip in the franchise's popularity, no. A quick skimming of any topic in this forum will highlight other more likely reasons.

If I were a better poster, I'd list them.

I also believed that Sonic lacked abilites. Almost every character SEGA came up with was able to reach a more higher platform excepet Sonic.

Tail-He flew
Knuckles-Climbing and Gliding
Amy-Hammer Jump
Cream-Flaps her ears to fly
Rouge-Gliding, flying, and climbing abilities
Shadow-He's Shadow. He'll find a way. *uses Chaos Control*
Espio-Climbing on walls
Mighty-the original Wall Jumper
Charmy-He's a bee. You can figure that out.
Vector-He was able to climb walls and had a jet-pack kind of a thing. (Correct me on this)
Ray-Flew somewhat like Tails
E-102-Jet Pack

It's not that Sonic is missing abilities, it's just that he can't get to a higher ledge. (The bouce/bound attack has changed in the Advance series, and may not be used again, so I am excluding this attack).

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Sonic should have one gigantic advantage against the other characters since he is the hero.

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I'm fairly certain that the Instashield has since been supplanted by the Homing Attack.

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The Advance series can answer both of those questions. The Advance series brought back the Insta-shield. He had both that, and the Homming Attack in Advance 2 and 3 (even though every character could use the Homming attack in 3, which I thought was weird ). In 3, Sonic was noticably more faster than the other characters; which granted him more mobility to speed.

Remember those elemental shields in Sonic 3&K and their effects on Sonic? Good times.

Tail-He flew
Knuckles-Climbing and Gliding
Amy-Hammer Jump
Cream-Flaps her ears to fly
Rouge-Gliding, flying, and climbing abilities
Shadow-He's Shadow. He'll find a way. *uses Chaos Control*
Espio-Walking on walls (see Chaotix)
Mighty-the original Wall Jumper
Charmy-He's a bee. You can figure that out.
Vector-He was able to climb walls (Chaotix), Bubble-gum glide (see Heroes).
Ray-Flew somewhat like Tails
E-102-Jet Pack

Fixed.

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Remember those elemental shields in Sonic 3&K and their effects on Sonic? Good times.

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I still do. ** sigh **

I know about the insta-shield and the elemental attacks, it's just that 1) They don't show up in the new games and 2) They are alright, but boring compared to Tails and Knuckles. And he does need a way to get to higher platforms or areas that only he can reach. How about wall running? Maybe activated by a button? Increasing Sonic's speed maybe?

The majority of the moves people list are 3d specific. He's not had a decent solo move since the Advance/Rush series started.

His only advantage is speed. In Advance 2 he needs the most rings to go into dash mode, though.

In Rush the speed difference between Blaze and himself is very significant.

3d games he's mostly sorted and works fine.

2d games could use shield powers again, or make the DASH attack be Sonic exclusive.

I always liked how in Sonic Adventure he could dash along a trail of rings but other than his insane speed and homing attack (Which should be Sonic's move alone) I think that's fine. A return of the elemental sheilds would be cool though.

The dash exclusive for Sonic could help. Or make the other characters slow down to the point that Sonic is the significantly fastest character in the series. But he'll still look bland to Shadow who can use weapons, chaos blasts, stop time, flip buses, hover, transform, and go out that speed that Sonic can go.

Yeah, but the difference between Sonic's speed and Shadow's speed is that Sonic's is natural, and Shad's isn't.

I mean, c'mon. Jet shoes.

Was Sonic even special in the old games? I mean it seemed to me that both Tails and Knuckles could run as fast as him, and do a spin dash, and get a super form.

^Sonic was the fastest character and was the only character to recieve a super form if you played Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 as a stand alone game. Plus as mentioned earlier:

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Remember those elemental shields in Sonic 3&K and their effects on Sonic? Good times.

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Not to mention that, barring his climbing ability, Knuckles had a shorter max jump height compared to Sonic. Remember that he needed a platform to reach the boss in Marble Garden.

I don't recall Tails suffering in the speed department in either Sonic 2 or 3, he was able to match Sonic perfectly (it would unfairly give Sonic players the advantage in the 2 player Vs modes of Sonic 2). Knuckles was noticeably slower on foot and, as stated, his jump slightly hampered in order to naturally limit his ability to enter areas Sonic and Tails could go.

The W Kaiten attack was a bit of a masterstroke of stategy embedded in Sonic 3, allowing Sonic to go invincible for a split second during a jump while slightly enlarging the strike area of his spin at the push of a button. Proper utilization of this technique could improve your score in Time Attack modes (something Sonic 3 lacked, unfortunately) and allow you some quick hits on enemies before they were normally within range of your jump, much like abusing Tails' flight mode to sneak in hits on overhead targets. All in all, added on to the Shield powers he could access, Sonic had the better repertoire of moves and attacks than the other characters in S3.

The Homing Attack was a poor substitute for the Insta-Shield in the 3D games, but still a necessary one.

Sonic Advance 1 (and 3?) brought back this move for Sonic but was severely gimped, its split second invincibility undone. Thus, the attack served only to increase Sonic's hit detection in a spin jump. Accidently engaging the attack could cause you to be hit by a stray projectile what would have otherwised grazed you and missed.

Despite Sonic's supposed lack of abilities, in Sonic 2 and 3&K I enjoy playing as him much more than Tails or Knuckles. I think it's his lack of addition powers all the time that appeals to me, keeps things that much more simple.

I don't think Sonic should get more abilities, but rather those of any and all other characters should be toned down. Especially Shadow. They should capitalise on Sonic's speed and make it the most notacibly better ability than others' speed. (I'm looking at you, Shadow).

With Sonic and Mario at the Olympics game coming up later in the year, who knows what extra abilities he might get 😮

When it comes right down to it, Shadow is nothing more than a Super Sonic recolor with a "tragic story" slapped on.

I tend to agree with Pach. If anything, everyone else needs to get rid of some of their abilities, because Sonic is getting lost in a sea of supporting characters. I think that they should keep whatever ability is their signature (ie. Amy's mallet, Tails's flight, Knuckles's climbing, etc.), but I really don't think they need all these extraneous abilites (*coughcoughringbombcoughcough*).

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I don't think Sonic should get more abilities, but rather those of any and all other characters should be toned down....They should capitalise on Sonic's speed and make it the most notacibly better ability than others' speed.

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Back to the Advance series talk. In 1 & 2, everyone runs at the same speed. (Actually, each characters' speed is different by about 1 second. Yeah, big difference. ) Although, 3 was very different. Sonic became much faster, and the other characters were downgraded. Ever noticed how in 1 Tails could fly for 13 seconds, but in 2, it was shortened to 8; and in 3 it was shortened again to 6 seconds. Amy turned into a carbon copy of Sonic in 2-losing all of her hammer specific techniques (I called this a bad thing. She couldn't use her hammer on spings to jump higher, the whirwind hammer move lost all of it's mobility, and she couldn't use the Hammer Jump). In 3 when Cream is calling out Cheese to attack, I noticed that the range and accuracy of this move was downgraded. What about Knuckles you ask? Well, that's a good question. When it comes down to it he really hasen't been downgraded at all. Although, I believe that his Gliding and Climbing skills are much more s-l-o-w-e-r that in S3&K; meaning, that it was better to keep him running, like Sonic, that to make him pace slowly with his altitude techniques.
All in all, when you look at things, it seems that SEGA noticed that Sonic was lacking in abilities when looking at the Advance series. They hindered the other characters' abilites for Sonic's sake.
But intead of disabling abilities or adding more, it just gives another reason on why they should make character specific stages again like in S3&K. (we're still waiting SEGA)

That may be the case for the Advance series but they still need to make it prominently notacible for the home console games.

Oh no. I noticed the "downgrading" in Advance 3 too (though I didn't spend time actually timing those things). It's one of the reasons that Advance 3 was my least favorite of the Advance games (the "partner"-thing was also annoying to me, I'll admit).

If they really start downgrading the other characters too much that'll kill my interest in the series (and it's not that high to begin with right now). I don't mind Sonic's "lack of abilities" (which I think is being a little overblown anyway in part because "Sonic = simplicity"--the only thing Sega has been relatively consistent about). Sure, he's not close to my fave chars to play, but that's because he doesn't do (nor should ever do) what I like to do most: fly/glide/climb. Hence, Knux, Tails, Rouge, & Cream are my faves to play of the games I own. I don't care if Sonic (and by extension Shadow because Shadow is always going to be allowed to be just as fast) are a zillion times faster, but messing with the others' abilities drives me crazy. ;p

Sonic's always had a "lack of abilities" in comparison to pretty much every introduced character (something Spite was getting at before). It's just that there were different paths (among other important minor details) for each character in some way that more than made up for it.

Can I just stand up for the "Sonic = Speed" thing.

A split second difference in speed is a crucial difference for time attacks, which is the main source of fun with the handheld Sonic's, especially Rush. Having Sonic be the only character capable of getting a 39.99 or less time for Leaf Storm 1 is crucial, as you get to excercise true skill rather than rely on the abilities of the other characters, such as gliding or mega jump boost R-Trick things.

39.99?
*checks own time*
It seems there's a good 20 seconds I can cut down somewhere...

Hmm, back on topic!

S3&K resolved the issue of different abilities well, as already stated in this topic.
There is no need to add over-the-top abilities to each character; slight differences are enough, as long as the levels allow for these small differences to show.
Case in point: Knuckles' lower jumping ability.

I feel that this could have been perfectly implemented into Sonic Rush, since Sonic and Blaze really have only minimal differences, but it failed to happen.
Blaze's R-tricks give her a big boost in movement, sometimes I instinctively try to reach a higher ledge that way and succeed, only to discover it to be a worthless dead end and most of the time just falling back down into the path below.
If the levels had been better designed, there would be another platform up there, leading to another path, accessible perhaps to Blaze alone, it would really improve the gameplay experience IMO.

That's one of the reasons why Sonic Rush was good. On the surface, Sonic and Blaze are the same character gameplaywise. But once you go deeper, they are really different characters. Sonic is good for time attack and usually beats Blaze by 10 seconds in each act. While Blaze is good for aerial arcrobatics and boosts. That the differences we need in the games, not Sonic being the one with no perks.

Man this topic snuck up on me. But yea i'm with Craig all the way. I'm for the "speed" as his specialty thing. What ST should do is make Sonic play so different from everyone else. Make everything so sensitive.

Give him extreme agility[ability to make super tight turns and stuff, jumping being sensitive to how hard and long the button is pushed etc], ultra speed...like give him blurring effects and stuff you know. Like show his displacement of the particles in the air when he's running so fast. And then after reaching a certain speed...maybe even slow down the enemies and stuff just a little bit to where you can respond to things so fast and stuff you know. I mean he's the trademark character come on...make it special when palying as him.

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Ray-Flew somewhat like Tails

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Where does this idea come from? As far as I know, he actually cannot glide (let alone fly like Tails does) in SegaSonic. Also, unless the arcade cabinet itself has it written somewhere, I've not seen any official source that labels him 'Ray the Flying Squirrel', either (I see the katakana on his encyclopedia page at The GHZ, but I've not seen it in the game or anything). None of his sprites have 'wing' flaps, either. But I've brought this up before so I'll shut up on that.

The only unique thing that Ray does seem to be able to do in his only playable role (not that he has a lot of non-playable roles - keychain cameo and that's it, yeah?) is traverse hand-ladders using his tail instead of his hands (which in the context of the game is no better than doing it the old fashioned way). I don't think he's intriguiing enough to return (and he won't), but if he did, I guess you could think up some other neat ideas that he could uses his tail for. Maybe he could use it like a pogo stick (wait, Fang in STF already does, right?) or simply to raise up higher off the ground to add to his jumping height.

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He does need a way to get to higher platforms or areas that only he can reach.

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Back before we had eight million characters, Tails and Knuckles' abilities to get to higher places (not necessarily the same high-up places as each other) were what made them special. Now it almost feels like Sonic's need to stick to lower routes makes him special I agree he needs some unique abilites (or to have some shared abilities stripped from the other characters), but I don't think one of them needs to allow him to get up higher.
Of course... it's hard to say when we're not specifically talking about 2D or 3D in particular (and shared or unique stages).

I'd like if there were a kind of speed heirarchy instated that Sega would stick to. Sonic should always be first, followed closely by Shadow, and then not quite so closely the rest of the characters (some of whom would match each other in speed, and others who would have a noticeable speed advantage). But no super slow characters again, please (re: StH06).

And chalk me up as another who wants elemental shields to return. They'd be awesome to have back for their element-protection alone, let alone giving Sonic his alternate jump actions.

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Despite Sonic's supposed lack of abilities, in Sonic 2 and 3&K I enjoy playing as him much more than Tails or Knuckles. I think it's his lack of addition powers all the time that appeals to me, keeps things that much more simple.

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Same here - to me it kinda felt like playing as a super fast bowling ball (or more appropriately, unchained wrecking ball). Sounds odd, but I guess it was because without extraneous actions, that's was Sonic was about - running around smacking things up in a spinning ball (you know it felt better due to Sonic having the toughest looking spines ).

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And then after reaching a certain speed...maybe even slow down the enemies and stuff just a little bit to where you can respond to things so fast and stuff you know.

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It would be a nice advantage in the likes of Secret Rings' Night Palace to avoid the parts of the floor that would be taken out by the spears.

I agree with your sig, Pachamac Western distribution will probably see a second surge of Haruhiism

I want a Sonic that can fight. SEGA realized that, odamn killing everything with a single homing attack got boring after so long... but the solution sucked because they just made them take more homing attacks to the face before going down (Sonic Heroes). Then, in Shadow... I don't really feel like talking about that game, actually.

Anyways, I want a Sonic that has actual fighting. Punching and kicking moves, etc etc etc. Make fights with simple robots exciting combo-filled ordeals. Hell, it'd be great if Sonic could play like Ninja Gaiden on the XBox during combat, or Devil May Cry minus swords and guns and stuff. Make him able to do some cool moves, too, like in Sonic Battle (kicking and bouncing someone off a wall then chasing after them in mid-air and slamming them back down with a devastating heel drop? yesss please) but make it more advanced with a free-form combo system and juggling and air-combos (as in Marvel vs Capcom) and such.

Or they can just keep having him jump onto everything to kill it like you know they will.

But Box...

Shadow had punch/kicks and no one used them because they're lame.

To do the combo moves you speak of would require enemies to have health bars again... and I have to say, since Sonic Heroes added them, I've been very annoyed. Nothing like an enemy which takes 3-5 hits to kill to slow down your speed runs.

Hahha Box you've played wa too many Capcom games. *high fives* Yea that would be quite awesome. Have him like he is on the animes and stuff, like so acrobatic and stuff. Throw in some kicks and punches. I don't see Sega ever doing that though. =/

Sonic's gameplay always been fast and had very simplistic combat. Like Craig said, you would hsve to have heath bars, which were disasters in SH and ShtH. Plus, if a simple buzzspin kills robots instantly, why use martial arts? However, I do agree that they could focus on his acrobatics more. No one else in the Sonic Universe has shown Sonic's skill(maybe Shadow)at bouncing off walls, running up steep hills, and backfliping like Sonic. I would love that to be in gameplay.

The thing is is that combat in Sonic is so low key and pointless it may as well not be there - enemies get used as stepping stones far more often then actual enemies. They should make the fighting actually interesting and fun to do so it doesn't bother you that enemies have health bars.

Yeah, but that would require you to stop, making the game have a "STOP!GO!STOP!GO!" feeling which is never good. Both SH and Shth have tried to expand the combat but had the same exact problem. I think they should just try to make the boss fights feel more cinematic(like God of War) and leave combat as it is.

But Sonic Heroes' combat was awful and so was Shadow's. If they actually made the combat GOOD then it wouldn't be a bad feeling =0

I still don't think so. People just want to bop on robot heads and keep running. A combat system, even though fun, would be interesting but it still flat out slows down the game.