If you are up to date in the goings on in the Sonic world, you would know that Sonic Team themselves have stated that Amy will not be in Sonic Adventure 2. This has naturally brought anger and sadness to many Amy fans, especially since she was set to continue to move forward after deciding to stop thinking about Sonic and make things happen for herself. So why did Sonic Team decide to dump her? According to them, they felt that she didn't fit in with the "Sonic" game. To be honest, I can agree with them. Hey wait, don't leave me now, I don't have anything personal against Amy, it's just that I understand where Sonic Team are coming from. You see, the problem that they have with Amy is the same problem that she has had for her whole life, the lack of defining characteristics to be used to enhance gameplay. To understand what I am saying, we must take a look at the three main characters of the Sonic world were originally created.
When a development team decides to create a computer character, they need to think about the nature of the character and how it will interact with it's environment. I have already covered this whole thing in my "Why is Knuckles and Echidna" so I'll make this quick. Sonic was created to have supersonic speed to leave gamers breathless. His defining characteristic was not only his speed but his ability to curl into a ball. This let him do rolling attacks and jump attacks which was cool to play as. This also left him open to development on this characteristic which made him preform Spin Dashes and Homing Attacks, seemless additions to Sonic's skills as they didn't contrast to his normal self. Tails' defining characteristic was his twin tails which allowed him to fly. This was designed to introduce flying into Sonic games and allowed Tails to gain his Tail Whip attack in Sonic Adventure. Knuckles had the characteristics of hard knuckles and gliding skill which allowed climbing and breaking down walls to appear in early games and allow him to develop to also be capable of fist attack and digging.
Still listening? If you were, you would know that there is a common thread running through the creation of these characters. They were all created with the thought on what characteristics they could have in order to contribute to the gameplay. If a sequel to the game comes about, these characteristics can be developed on to give new aspects to the gameplay.
However here we come to Amy's problem. The problem is so big, I'll be using capital letter (meaning you'll probably read it before you finish this sentence) and the problem is: AMY WAS NOT CREATED WITH THE INTENTION OF BECOMING A PLAYABLE CHARACTER! On her debut in Sonic CD, all she was created for was to be a professional hostage who kept getting caught as well as a lovesick, female hedgehog. That wasall she was created for.
We can now see her problem. Because she wasn't intended to be playable, she wasn't created with any characteristics that would make up her style of gameplay. On examination, the only identifiable characteristic she had was love and unusually this characteristic was used in Sonic Drift, a racing game for the Game Gear, but the characteristic wasn't flexible enough. When Sonic the Fighters (Arcade) came out, they needed to do something to stop her from getting pulverised in any normal match. They gave her a great big hammer to attack with but while it held up for the game, it clearly went against her general style. Sonic R came and yet again, she managed to do okay. The game didn't put too much demand on her actual character so she was okay after she was given a car with a turbo boost. But crunch time came with Sonic Adventure. So far she had been playable in genres where her lack of proper skills could be covered up somwhat but no such luck for Sonic Adventure, she was up against the backbone of the true Sonic world, a hardcore platformer. To make matters worse with the Dreamcast's huge capabilities, Sonic Team was looking for ways to stretch the characters in new ways and so give each of the characters their own style of gameplay. Amy was going to be included and it was time to see how she could hold up.
And she didn't hold up that well. In search of a characterisic of her they could use, Sonic Team gave her back her gigantic hammer and merged it slightly with her true characteristic, love, to create a love hammer. The hammer conflicted with Amy once again and it was just strange to see Amy pull out something almost as big as herself out of her pocket. The gameplay also suffered. She wasn't given any speed like Sonic, Tails or Knuckles and had to survive on just her hammer. In all fairness, the gameplay wasn't bad, it was fun to see Amy suddenly fly several feet into the air and the levels had quite a bit of fun in them. But it wasn't good enough. The play was still awkward and people who played Sonic Adventure often rated her game as second worst (besides Big's game) not to mention the shortest and only three levels.
I suppose that Sonic Team had decided to call it a day. Amy would still be a part of the Sonic World even appearing in spin offs (e.g. Sonic Shuffle) but they felt that including her in the main platform would just detract from the main focus of the game, she just wasn't made for platform games and they felt that it wasn't worth it to force this role on her.
So there you have it, if you're a Amy fan, I feel sorry for you, I really do. But try to see it from Sonic Team's point of view.
Well, that's really all I can say for now, except, thank you for reading Flying Fox thinks Aloud: "When I think alould, I Type Aloud." Until next time!
Incidentally, for the exact same reasons as I said above, Sally Acorn dosn't look as if she has a chance of appearing in a main Sonic game, just in case you're one of the people who hopes that she well.
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