Sonic Prime has no fursonas

January 10, 2023

So, I've recently finished Lilac's Freedom Planet 2 route, and I think I understand why Sonic Prime hasn't clicked for me. I know that it's kind of unfair to compare the two in a way since they're aiming for different things and are in two entirely different mediums, but this is my personal reasoning and doesn't speak to the inherent value of any of these pieces of media.

While I'm gonna be praising FP2 in some aspects, I'm also frustrated with the way they've handled racism analogies and especially the ending. You can find it in my backloggd review here, though be aware that it obviously contains spoilers for the ending. I only took half a star off my score because it's ultimately less like they were intentionally racist and more like they didn't commit to it so it came off like a Marvel movie.

But anyways. Something I really liked about Freedom Planet 2 was the little town sections where you can walk around and talk to the NPCs. Some of them have lore while others only have a funny quip. They even have two characters parodying Sonic and Amy called Sunny and Amelia! A screenshot of Freedom Planet 2. Lilac is talking to Sunny, a blue hedgehog character. Sunny's dialog reads: You know, all this reminds me of this dream I keep having: where a mad scientist with crazy eyebrows wanted to turn everyone into robots, and only me and my friends could stop him!

It really fleshes out the world to be able to talk to all these different people and learn their quirks, like how the smaller species usually make their homes in buildings meant for the larger ones. Their designs are also fantastic. While not every single NPC is unique — a lot of them wear similar outfits like the military and the scientists — they all have such interesting designs. I'm going to say the same thing I said in my review because it's the highest compliment I could give these designs: they all look like they could be someone's fursona!

Now, as for Sonic Prime... There's not a lot of background characters, and the ones that are there are very bland in my opinion. I do understand why: if you make the extras too interesting then it'll be harder to pick someone to focus on when there's a lot going on in the scene. And also budget. But come on, the caveman universe didn't even have background characters! And the pirate universe doesn't until some randos show up for a single fight.

I would also like the point out that there are no secondary characters. All the characters are either part of the main gang or the Eggmen. The closest thing to a secondary character would be Shadow, and he has less than ten minutes of screentime total so far.

So what does Sonic Prime have? Infinite permutations of the characters you already know and love, except completely devoid of their in-game context that made you fall in love with them to begin with. The show doesn't reference any of the games' worldbuilding. You know what it does reference all the time? Green Hill zone. Every time. Every single universe is Green Hill Zone. My (least) favorite instance of this is in the pirate universe, which is a giant sea and a few sparse islands. Sonic looks down at the sea for a moment, and he sees it. The fucking Green Hill Zone loop.

This is hell. We're in hell.

I mentioned in my new interests page that what I like the most about the Sonic franchise is the worldbuilding. We've had little of it in the Colors era, we've had an attempt at it in Forces, and now in Frontiers we're being generously gifted with every single reference possible. While some find this annoying, and I do thing Prime having that many references would also be a nightmare, I really enjoy the way Frontiers did it and I'm excited to see what the new connected universe is going to look like from now on. Not so excited to see what'll happen in Prime, but I'll keep an eye out just in case. Maybe they'll shoot Maria again if they're feeling spicy. I doubt it.

Once again, this is kind of an unfair comparison in terms of which one objectively has the better world and background cast and lore for many different reasons. I'm just expressing my feelings about Sonic Prime and how playing Freedom Planet 2 helped me put those feelings into words.

Also hey, first new blog post since the redesign! I might spice up the blog section's look some time, but it's good for now. I'll take things slow and make everything as uncomplicated as possible for myself from now on. I definitely do not need jquery on my website. Never again.