Here's where to find some of the amazing fan-art used in this video... - Nibroc-Rock - www.deviantart.com/nibroc-rock - Whose Bomb & Heavy, Metal Knuckles, Shadow Android, Maria, E-10000r, SCR-HD, SCR-GP and Omochao - Joe T.E. - www.deviantart.com/joetestrikesback - Metal Sonic - JaysonJeanChannel - www.deviantart.com/jaysonjeanchannel/ - Sticks the Badger
Surge The Tenrec. I love her electricity power to shock and electrocute her adversaries. Plus, her razor-sharp teeth remind me of Scourge the Hedgehog, and her evil smirk puts intimidation for most characters to fear her villainous abilities!
Right. They were unlocked by getting all Emblems in the Knuckles and Rouge stages (Tikal for Knux; Chaos for Rouge). Same thing for Metal Sonic, Amy Rose, Chao, and Dark Chao for their respective 2P modes. In Battle, they were unlocked from the start.
@@johnomalley7211 oh no i'm terribly sorry for misremembering light gaia's name over a year ago thank you so much for informing me of my unacceptable mistake
Technically you don't play as Chao in the Sonic Adventure games, you cheer them on. The first real playable appearance of Chao was in Sonic Shuffle (2000).
Fun fact, the Red Wolf used in Sonic Forces promotional material actually has an official name, being Gadget. I dont know where it specifies this but apparently its true
There's Chaos Gamma in Sonic Battle. While Chaos Gamma was just there to add another recognizable character into Sonic Battle, it is also not actually Gamma. You could also kind of get away with referring to Dark Chao as a different character than Chao, since you directly control one in Adventure 2's multiplayer as a separate character from the regular Chao.
I just want anyone other than Sonic to be playable. I'm sick of the 2010's putting the extended cast on the bench. Most of all, I want to see Shadow playable again, and for him to be written as well as he was in SA2 and '06 again
@@leonardoalvarenga7572 but he wasn't well written or had consistency, he came back to being an edgelord and didn't have any major importance in the game
@@jatarokemuri5443 That's not the point either and it's not even entirely true as he used Chaos Control when enemies were aligned to destroy all of them at once with the Homing Attack.
Fascinating! It's rad to see the history of playable cast in the Sonic Universe- so many characters having come and gone. It's a shame some never got the spot light they deserved. My forces avatar was a purple bird who I'd like to say is a cockatiel. I started Forces as a Joke but I grew to love my Rookie.
if he means Runner Revival, they weren't in the original Runners. They were added in the fan-server Revival, along with Marine from Rush Adventure. Edit: Nah he meant Speed Battle, my bad.
Update after a while: they're not quite in the mainline games yet, but both Tangle and Sticks got verbal nods in Frontiers, meaning they've officially been upgraded to existing in the main canon =)
zeena from lost world, infinite from forces, tangle and whisper from the idw comic, and longclaw from the movies are also characters you can unlock to play as in sonic forces: speed battle
I’m glad that there are people who understand that Tails came to his own by the adventure era, if that’s what your referring to. Sometimes I think that they originally had more plans for him. Anyway great video!
Yeah I think SEGA of Japan always wanted Tails to be a super smart, helpful and intelligent sidekick. Western portrayals of Tails in the 90s never really reflected this though.
This was an awesome video! I love some of these ridiculously obscure characters. If we're counting Flicky in the sense of counting games outside of the mainline series games, then I'd make an argument that the player character of Dr Robotniks Mean Bean Machine, Has Bean, should count too. I don't believe the player sees them, but it is assumed that they are a member of the Bean People that are kidnapped and turned into robots, so the concept is sort of the same as that of the Flickies.
That's a fair point. I had endless debates back in the day with friends as to whether we were playing as Sonic or not in Mean Bean Machine. I'll have to double check the manual again to see what it says haha
The wiki is the only place that says Has Bean is the character you’re playing as despite him obviously cheering you on (like the manual says) similarly to Carbuncle in the Puyo series. And that wiki lies about a lot of things.
Has Bean's place in Sonic lore is debatable. Mean Bean Machine is a direct reskin of Puyo Puyo, and Has Bean shares its design with Carbuncle. At that point it's pretty unclear whether or not Has Bean as a character even exists
While its debatable whether or not you really "control" the chao in sonic adventure, there's no argument that chao are playable in sonic shuffle, which didnt release too long after
In Sonic and the Black Knight you can play as Lancelot, Gawain, Percival, Lamorak and Galahad, they are the same characters with armor, but technically they are different characters
You missed doom's eye in shadow the hedgehog. (if we're counting the characters who follow you around. To be fair I don't remember if he can fight or anything but I think he was controllable too.)
@@shellyvision9693 I'm pretty sure he's controllable. The Xbox port doesn't have the 2P co op mode like the other platforms did, maybe that's what you're thinking of.
There's a relatively brand new character introduced in the IDW Comic series called Surge The Tenrec whose design is very akin to Ashura. I believe it's no coincidence either as it may have even be inspired by Ashura. Green fur with black fur on the face.
Nice video. Well researched and well put together. One obscure playable character that comes to mind is the remote robot from Tails Adventure on the Game Gear. It's more of a utility than a character technically, but if we're counting chao and omochao, why not our cute little remote robot fox as well?
My dream Sonic game is one where you can pick from like 15 characters with their own abilities and you breeze through the same level, able to take different routes depending on which character you are. Characters like Knuckles and Mighty could break rocks to clear shortcuts and characters like Tails or Nack (who’d have a double-jump of sorts where he can pull out his cartoony pistol and shoot directly downwards, sending himself up and a projectile straight down) could get to higher ground easily. Characters like Sonic and Shadow would be the only characters with a boost, and thus the easiest characters for kids to just blast through levels with, while other characters would be harder and more diverse for older players.
Huh... looking back I'm a bit surprised Marine the Raccoon was not playable. Somehow in my memory she was lol Also 14:26 wasn't that *Team* Sonic Racing?
My main Forces Avatar was just Nack the Weasel lol. And I filled the other character slots with SatAM/Archie characters like Sally Acorn, Antione, and Bunnie Rabbot ^_^
I first came across your channel the other day and I am loving your videos so far! Also, I highly recommend that you play Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. It was the first Sonic game that I ever played and it's a great game. :)
Bruh........ I've been playing sonic since THE VERY BEGINNING... And you just enlightened me about the pun that is tails name!!!! I'm literally can not believe I never realized that. Holy ******
Now I want to see someone list all the "alts" and guest characters this video excluded. Ones I can name off the top of my head are that Super Sonic was listed as a seperate character first in Sonic R, and Classic Sonic debuted as a seperate playable character in Generations.
You can kiiiiinda play as Elise, or rather, Sonic and Elise in Dusty Desert and Tropical Jungle as them combining their powers gives you that protective fire shield that can damage enemies and prevent you from sinking into quicksand or water. Could maybe be classified as more of a powerup though like the Wisps or T-Pup
There really is so much potential for an Avengers esque sonic game, where you have multiple characters doing high speed platforming and breaking robots, each character having their own twist on the gameplay. The fan game Sonic World DX is the closest thing i can think of to this idea and I think it's just the perfect niche for the game.
World DX and SRB2 really gives SEGA a run for their money on how to make a crody yet balanced cast of characters. That wouldn't be bad to have officialy, but I know that they are quite slow with the decisional process other than the whole Classic/Modern division which is dumb.
I remember I had always wondered why there were so unnecessarily many characters in the Sonic series since I was only familiar with few games and only wanted to focus on Sonic as a kid so I found the others distracting. However when I think more about that, there aren't actually that specially many characters in Sonic in comparison to other long-running franchises who are FAR worse with implementing literally hundreds of similar characters. As I became more familiar with the whole main line of Sonic games, I also realize that all of these characters did have their own purposes, backgrounds and personalities, especially when they first got introduced as they just didn't just pop up from existence out of nothing really. What I think why just Sonic got the notorious reputation for too many characters is because of Archie comics and all those OCs from young fans and other spin-offs.
Exactly this. When you do your research there isn’t that many characters( at least playable ). I also, separate the Classic cast and modern cast of characters which tremendously reduces the characters I want to see playable in a classic styled game (Sonic, Amy, Tails, Knuckles, Mighty, Ray, Fang, Bean, Bark, Honey, Heavy&Bomb, MetalSonic), and characters I want to see playable in a modern game( Sonic, Amy, Tails, Knuckles, Big&Froggy, Cream&Cheese, Shadow, Rouge, Omega, Vector, Charmy, Espio, Blaze, Silver, Jet, Wave, Storm, MetalSonic ) That’s 12 Classic, characters to 18+ modern characters. Classic characters should only feel different, and have their own jump action. Modern characters should have unique attacks and ways of transportation Other than that they all should be able to spin jump, use momentum to build speed and that’s it. It shouldn’t be so hard to have well known, and popular characters playable again.
Characters ranked by how many years it took them to become playable: 21 years: Omochao 11 years: Eggman Nega 9 years: Mephiles 6 years: Zeena 4 years: Maria 3 years: Eggman, EggRobo, Chaos, Tikal, Zazz, Zavok 2 years: Metal Sonic, Shadow Android 1 year: Amy, Fang 0 years: Flicky, Sonic, Tails, Mighty, Ray, Knuckles, Vector, Espio, Charmy, Bomb, Heavy, Bean, Bark, Tails Doll, Metal Knuckles, Big, Gamma, Chao, Shadow, Rouge, Cream, Omega, Emerl, Blaze, Jet, Wave, Storm, every Sonic Riders robot, Silver, Shade, King Arthur, Honey, Sticks, Avatar, Longclaw, Tangle, Whisper Note: I only counted year numbers for release dates so some may be off by ~1 year if rounded properly. Also all non-video game appearances as well as glitch/planned appearances are excluded. So for example, Vector was originally planned to appear in 1991 and Amy originally debuted in a manga in 1992, but their video game debuts are in 1995 and 1993, respectively.
Thanks! This is absolutely awesome. Funny that Omochao took the longest to become playable (so far) because, well, he's probably the most annoying character!
When racing the Chao in the Sonic Adventure games, you didn't actually have any direct control over them... You just got to watch the result of the care you put into raising them.
Loved the video! IMO Flicky and the Shadow robot are a bit of a stretch, but that’s just my opinion. I never realized how many playable characters there really are!
If we count all the OC, NPCs, characters' variation and everyone from the comics, tv shows and movies, kinda? I'm sure this number can be reached only in gacha games based on long lasting rpg series.
Funny how this series has a myriad of characters to choose from, yet nowadays its considered a miracle to have more than just Sonic be playable in a game.
Sonic Rivals i believe may have had characters you could have counted. Metal Sonic 2.0 and 3.0 are technically unique characters tho just pallet swaps in game.
In Sonic Forces I turned my avatar into Sally Acorn because it made the most sense for her to be there in the story. It's sad, she's never been playable. Just a cameo in Sonic Spinball.
I was disappointed for a long time that they dropped Fang, seemingly replaced by Big given the shared color scheme, when it really seemed like he was a core cast character prior to Sonic Adventure.
Yeah, Fang made it into 3 games (4 if you include a little cameo in Tails Adventure) and was also going to be in Sonic Xtreme. It makes him quite a prolific early character.
He returned for Superstars as a recurring enemy and as a boss fight for Trip mode, but I'm not sure that's enough for SEGA to reuse him as much as in the past. I hope to be wrong here, but I fly low when talking about SEGA.
Mine, I kid you not was a bird named sega fan (wearing the sega items), then gamer the bird (wearing the gamer hat) then the kink crusader (wearing the knight armor)
It'd never happen but I'd like to see a playable version of that mysterious unnamed sonic robot inside the stasis tube in Adventure 1 (or silver sonic if you prefer).
You'll have to make another one of these videos one day as I know we've had more characters since then. We've had the debut of Trip in Superstars (along with Metal Tails and Metal Amy if you count them, since they had to be customised in order to play them), along with more characters in the mobile games like Infinite, Surge and Metal Sonic 3.0
Back in the 90s I was really into the Archie Sonic comic series (and Sat am, of course), and would have wet my pants in excitement over a game starring all the Freedom Fighters. Wouldn't work that great as a standard Sonic style speed platformer, though, so I would propose either some kind of RPG or a Lost Vikings style puzzle platformer where you switch between the characters, each having their own specialities, and carry out missions against Robotnik.
You may have already seen it, but there's a cancelled game out there dubbed 'Sonic-16' that was proposed and was going to include Sally Acorn, but the idea didn't get Yuji Naka's approval. At least the Freedom Fighters cameoed in Sonic Spinball.
@@JohnnyVector I looked it up cause it didn't really ring a bell. Now that you mention it, I vaguely remember seeing that mockup screenshot of Sonic in a sort of isometric perspective and reading that it would have been based on that version of the Sonic universe. Didn't know the project was referred to as Sonic-16, though, or that it would have been done by the Spinball team. I like Spinball more than many Sonic fans did, and I remember trying to pause during the bonus round to see the Freedom Fighters escape. Nostalgic stuff.
Heres a couple more that may or may not count?: - light gaia is playable in the final boss of sonic unleashed -Metal Sonic Nega (3.0) is playable in Sonic Rivals 2 - We dont know who the player is in Dr Robotniks Mean Bean Machine, but it could likely be Arle Najda and Carbuncle -I might be wrong, but I think Johnny could be playable in SRA if there is a multiplayer mode, you could also technically argue that Marine is the one sailing the boat? - Froggy is playable in Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing as an All Star move - The Sonic Androids from Sonic Simulator in Sonic Colours - theres an easter egg in Sonic Heroes where you can play as Metal Counterparts of all the characters, though this might fall under skins - Dark Chao is playable in Sonic Adventure 2 in multiplayer - You can play as Barry in The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog - There's a pigeon in Sonic 06 called Hatsun, you can play as them in the dating sim Hatoful Boyfriend My Sonic Forces OC was also called Evil the Moustace. He was a smug b**** of a yellow bird who had a top hat and monocle with moustache
15:26 actually its confirmed that the 3 characters starline, Surge, and Kit the kitsune are all based on glitch characters. Starline being the leftovers of tails in knuckles chaotix, Surge being what you call ashura, and kit being the blue tails glitch from sonic 3
Saw someone else beat me to the Chaos Gamma observation. I'll instead posit that the real first instance of playable Chao that I know of was also SA2B where Dark Chao and Chao pilot walker mechs in the multiplayer mode.
Even though they're already playable in other games if they ever reboot Sonic riders I want to see team hooligan as playable just for the interactions between bean and Jet alone.
If you’re talking about mainline modern games such as Colors all the way to Frontiers, just Sonic. If Sonic is really going for that teamwork and friendship and collaboration moral, Sonic should really let the others do their parts as characters in levels.
It's funny how Sonic Force's speed battle gonna keep adding more characters as long the game continues Because they just now added infinite as a playable character
Most of them are just reskin of existing characters, so quite the artificious way to increase the count. Moreso if they got more to get between Classic and Modern games.
Since i was a child i always conceder night and amigo as a sonic characters cause they appered a lot in sonic games as a refrencess or as a playable characters
Since this video came out 3 years ago there have been a few more characters debuting in games. In the new update of sonic dash you can play as surge the tenrec from the new IDW comics Nine from sonic prime infinite from sonic forces Chuck and red from angry birds Sonic superstars debuted The rabbit concept I think is called max the rabbit Mecha sonic from sonic 2 and metal Amy and tails are available in battle mode This is not a new character but classic Amy is playable in sonic origins
"Not going to include characters from other franchises" *Starts of with Flicky from Flicky - A character and franchise that, to my knowledge, predates the first Sonic game, therefore excluding it as a viable canidate.* Much like Donkey Kong isn't seen as part of the Mario franchise, even though Mario was the protagonist of the early DK games, and DK regularly appears in Mario games.
aren't the knight versions of everyone in black night technically different characters? like I think they're actually entirely different people who just happen to resemble main universe sonic characters and I'd say that means they're not just variants (although I might not be remembering and they might have been revealed to actually be the same characters, I haven't played the game since I was a kid so)
They still count as variants for the purposes of this video, they also have the same powers as their counterparts so there's no point in including them
Here's where to find some of the amazing fan-art used in this video...
- Nibroc-Rock - www.deviantart.com/nibroc-rock - Whose Bomb & Heavy, Metal Knuckles, Shadow Android, Maria, E-10000r, SCR-HD, SCR-GP and Omochao
- Joe T.E. - www.deviantart.com/joetestrikesback - Metal Sonic
- JaysonJeanChannel - www.deviantart.com/jaysonjeanchannel/ - Sticks the Badger
Wait so, The Eggman Nega render was official?
O
Watched this again after 1 year and finally realized that at 9:45 you put swallow and not storm
Your wrong Sonic says "I'm out of here" in Sonic Cd after waiting for 3 minutes without moving makes this instant game over happen.
Surge The Tenrec. I love her electricity power to shock and electrocute her adversaries. Plus, her razor-sharp teeth remind me of Scourge the Hedgehog, and her evil smirk puts intimidation for most characters to fear her villainous abilities!
A minor correction: Tikal and Chaos were playable in the Dreamcast version of "SA2". They didn't have unique animations or attributes, however.
Thanks for that!
Right. They were unlocked by getting all Emblems in the Knuckles and Rouge stages (Tikal for Knux; Chaos for Rouge). Same thing for Metal Sonic, Amy Rose, Chao, and Dark Chao for their respective 2P modes. In Battle, they were unlocked from the start.
And bean
@@dalejhunter1 Except Dark Chao Walker wasn't in SA2. Big was the unlockable for SA2
SA2 or SA2 Battle? (i think Battle was DC and GC but could be wrong)
Only omission I can think of is maybe Chip from Unleashed. You're technically playing as him when you're controlling Light Gia, the giant temple mech.
Good point, thanks!
So 57
Who is light gia I didn’t know there were characters named Gia I’ve heard of GAIA*
@@johnomalley7211 oh no i'm terribly sorry for misremembering light gaia's name over a year ago thank you so much for informing me of my unacceptable mistake
@@johnomalley7211 🤓
Technically you don't play as Chao in the Sonic Adventure games, you cheer them on. The first real playable appearance of Chao was in Sonic Shuffle (2000).
What about the Chao robots in Adventure 2 battle, or was that after shuffle's release
@@JinjoJinjoJinjo Shuffle came between adventure 1 and 2
Cant you control them in the battle arena of the chao garden
@@knaxor if you mean Chao Karate, that wasn’t added until SA2 battle
Sonic team racing if that counts
Fun fact, the Red Wolf used in Sonic Forces promotional material actually has an official name, being Gadget. I dont know where it specifies this but apparently its true
Interesting, thanks for that!
I'm pretty sure his name is Buddy the Wolf.
I thought that was a made up name given to him by the fans
I call him Rookie
Are you talking about red bubsy ?
You really forgot everyones favorite characters yellow and red sonic from sega sonic bros. How could you!
Lol
And he also forgot the white sonic from segasonic bros that comes way later in the game (around star light zone )
That game was never official realesed
Goku & Piccolo?
@@bewearstar9462 well it still counts in my book
You forgot chip from sonic unleashed. He can be playable during the final boss
Also Orbot and Cubot are technically playable in Sonic Lost World’s mini-games
0:07 classic sonic and tails with modern eye style look actually amazing at least in cgi format.
The thumbnail is correcr, there are 3 characters in the Sonic Franchise.
Source(s);
Sonic forces
Name a more iconic trio than Sonic, Mephiles and Tails Doll. I'll wait
@@JohnnyVector Knuckles, Knuckles. & Knuckles.
*Mephiles, Classic Sonic And Tails Doll*
The Only Characters Of The Sonic Franchise.
@@JogG4DX Exactly!
There's Chaos Gamma in Sonic Battle. While Chaos Gamma was just there to add another recognizable character into Sonic Battle, it is also not actually Gamma.
You could also kind of get away with referring to Dark Chao as a different character than Chao, since you directly control one in Adventure 2's multiplayer as a separate character from the regular Chao.
A minor correction, Nega is actually from the future and not the sol dimension, he just traveled back to steal the soul emeralds
Thanks, a few comments let me know about this, seems his origin was retconned in a later game
Weeb
@@BitchChill weeb
@@possibly_ben You are
@@BitchChill so are you
I just want anyone other than Sonic to be playable. I'm sick of the 2010's putting the extended cast on the bench. Most of all, I want to see Shadow playable again, and for him to be written as well as he was in SA2 and '06 again
Shadow was playable in Forces.
@@leonardoalvarenga7572 but he wasn't well written or had consistency, he came back to being an edgelord and didn't have any major importance in the game
@@あきら-h7f I wasn't talking about the writing.
@@leonardoalvarenga7572 he was a moveset clone of sonic and did not have any original levels
@@jatarokemuri5443 That's not the point either and it's not even entirely true as he used Chaos Control when enemies were aligned to destroy all of them at once with the Homing Attack.
Fascinating! It's rad to see the history of playable cast in the Sonic Universe- so many characters having come and gone. It's a shame some never got the spot light they deserved.
My forces avatar was a purple bird who I'd like to say is a cockatiel.
I started Forces as a Joke but I grew to love my Rookie.
Thanks! Yes, Sega have a lot of characters with some real potential. I wish some could get more of the spotlight.
A purple bird?! Thats mine too!
Had no idea tangle and whisper were in mobile games! Hope they get into the mainline games sometime
if he means Runner Revival, they weren't in the original Runners. They were added in the fan-server Revival, along with Marine from Rush Adventure.
Edit: Nah he meant Speed Battle, my bad.
Update after a while: they're not quite in the mainline games yet, but both Tangle and Sticks got verbal nods in Frontiers, meaning they've officially been upgraded to existing in the main canon =)
You *didn't know* ?
9:50
I like how Storm is just referred as "Swallow"
A big oopsie
Yo, this was great! I'd forgotten a few of these myself and I hadn't even realized Longclaw had made a playable appearance. What a wild selection.
I didn't realize Zeena made first playable appearance in same game Longclaw has
Eggman Nega was actually playable in Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games from 2009. I remember that because his theme slaps in that game.
Haha thanks, I'll have to check out the music
He was in the game but as an antagonist, I don't believe he was playable
You deserve so much more attention. Keep it up, man!
Thanks for the nice comment and for the support!
zeena from lost world, infinite from forces, tangle and whisper from the idw comic, and longclaw from the movies are also characters you can unlock to play as in sonic forces: speed battle
I’m glad that there are people who understand that Tails came to his own by the adventure era, if that’s what your referring to. Sometimes I think that they originally had more plans for him. Anyway great video!
Yeah I think SEGA of Japan always wanted Tails to be a super smart, helpful and intelligent sidekick. Western portrayals of Tails in the 90s never really reflected this though.
This was an awesome video! I love some of these ridiculously obscure characters.
If we're counting Flicky in the sense of counting games outside of the mainline series games, then I'd make an argument that the player character of Dr Robotniks Mean Bean Machine, Has Bean, should count too. I don't believe the player sees them, but it is assumed that they are a member of the Bean People that are kidnapped and turned into robots, so the concept is sort of the same as that of the Flickies.
That's a fair point. I had endless debates back in the day with friends as to whether we were playing as Sonic or not in Mean Bean Machine. I'll have to double check the manual again to see what it says haha
The wiki is the only place that says Has Bean is the character you’re playing as despite him obviously cheering you on (like the manual says) similarly to Carbuncle in the Puyo series. And that wiki lies about a lot of things.
Has Bean's place in Sonic lore is debatable. Mean Bean Machine is a direct reskin of Puyo Puyo, and Has Bean shares its design with Carbuncle. At that point it's pretty unclear whether or not Has Bean as a character even exists
While its debatable whether or not you really "control" the chao in sonic adventure, there's no argument that chao are playable in sonic shuffle, which didnt release too long after
Excellent point, thank you!
i've literally been wondering about this for years but could never find a definitive answer. thank you for making this video
In Sonic and the Black Knight you can play as Lancelot, Gawain, Percival, Lamorak and Galahad, they are the same characters with armor, but technically they are different characters
Good point, cheers
You missed doom's eye in shadow the hedgehog. (if we're counting the characters who follow you around. To be fair I don't remember if he can fight or anything but I think he was controllable too.)
Ah thanks blue spark! I'll have to replay Shadow the Hedgehog, I totally forgot Doom's Eye was one of the characters who followed you around.
i dont think eggman and doom's eye who followed couldn't be controlled. everyone else could however
@@JamesPlaysGames95 charmy couldn't either
dont some characters in sonic runners follow you too like the genies? I figured they were absent since you're not really playing as them
@@shellyvision9693 I'm pretty sure he's controllable. The Xbox port doesn't have the 2P co op mode like the other platforms did, maybe that's what you're thinking of.
Great video, great research! Only a little mistake at 9:40, the names are Jet, Wave and Storm like you said :P
Thanks, haha damn not sure how I didn't catch that!
There's a relatively brand new character introduced in the IDW Comic series called Surge The Tenrec whose design is very akin to Ashura. I believe it's no coincidence either as it may have even be inspired by Ashura. Green fur with black fur on the face.
9:20 the classic trio! Jet the Hawk, Wave the Swallow and Swollow the Albatross!
Nice video. Well researched and well put together. One obscure playable character that comes to mind is the remote robot from Tails Adventure on the Game Gear. It's more of a utility than a character technically, but if we're counting chao and omochao, why not our cute little remote robot fox as well?
Ah very interesting! I've not played that one, but it's always interested me. I'll have to check it out.
@@JohnnyVector I remember playing it when it launched way back. It was such a fun little Metroidvania game.
Also what about Amy's Living Car from Sonic R?
My dream Sonic game is one where you can pick from like 15 characters with their own abilities and you breeze through the same level, able to take different routes depending on which character you are. Characters like Knuckles and Mighty could break rocks to clear shortcuts and characters like Tails or Nack (who’d have a double-jump of sorts where he can pull out his cartoony pistol and shoot directly downwards, sending himself up and a projectile straight down) could get to higher ground easily. Characters like Sonic and Shadow would be the only characters with a boost, and thus the easiest characters for kids to just blast through levels with, while other characters would be harder and more diverse for older players.
Just play Sonic World DX or modded SRB2.
They have loads of characters and are free, because SEGA would never even if Hell get frozen.
I love how in every sonic game, an old or new face shows up, its what makes this loveable franchise so awesome
I legit was waiting to see if you forgot about honey, but I am glad you didn't!
Oh and for sonic forces, I made my cat "Reeses the Cat". Yep.
Nice! Haha yeah, I'm glad Sega put Honey into the later port.
My character in Sonic Forces is a rabbit called "NiGHTS the Bunny" due to having the NiGHTS costume on lol
Huh... looking back I'm a bit surprised Marine the Raccoon was not playable. Somehow in my memory she was lol
Also 14:26 wasn't that *Team* Sonic Racing?
Haha ah yes, my bad! Yeah, when researching I was surprised by the lack of Marine
The closest thing you can get to playable Marine is a Mii wearing a Marine costume in some of the Mario & Sonic games.
You play as the boat, and I guess people just assumed she was driving it
You Forgot E-102 "Chaos Gamma" in Sonic Battle, it's not the same E-102 than Sonic Adventure
Thanks Nicolas, good one
This was a great video! Looking forward to checking out your channel more!
Thanks a lot breadsandwich, I'm glad you enjoyed the video.
My main Forces Avatar was just Nack the Weasel lol. And I filled the other character slots with SatAM/Archie characters like Sally Acorn, Antione, and Bunnie Rabbot ^_^
I first came across your channel the other day and I am loving your videos so far! Also, I highly recommend that you play Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. It was the first Sonic game that I ever played and it's a great game. :)
Thanks a lot! I'll try and track down Sonic Chronicles and give it a go.
6:17 wtf was where you feeding that chao lol
Bruh........ I've been playing sonic since THE VERY BEGINNING... And you just enlightened me about the pun that is tails name!!!!
I'm literally can not believe I never realized that.
Holy ******
Now I want to see someone list all the "alts" and guest characters this video excluded. Ones I can name off the top of my head are that Super Sonic was listed as a seperate character first in Sonic R, and Classic Sonic debuted as a seperate playable character in Generations.
Werehog, Excallibur Sonic, and a whole lot other in Sonic Forces: Speed Battle is avaliable.
You can kiiiiinda play as Elise, or rather, Sonic and Elise in Dusty Desert and Tropical Jungle as them combining their powers gives you that protective fire shield that can damage enemies and prevent you from sinking into quicksand or water. Could maybe be classified as more of a powerup though like the Wisps or T-Pup
There really is so much potential for an Avengers esque sonic game, where you have multiple characters doing high speed platforming and breaking robots, each character having their own twist on the gameplay. The fan game Sonic World DX is the closest thing i can think of to this idea and I think it's just the perfect niche for the game.
World DX and SRB2 really gives SEGA a run for their money on how to make a crody yet balanced cast of characters. That wouldn't be bad to have officialy, but I know that they are quite slow with the decisional process other than the whole Classic/Modern division which is dumb.
I remember I had always wondered why there were so unnecessarily many characters in the Sonic series since I was only familiar with few games and only wanted to focus on Sonic as a kid so I found the others distracting.
However when I think more about that, there aren't actually that specially many characters in Sonic in comparison to other long-running franchises who are FAR worse with implementing literally hundreds of similar characters.
As I became more familiar with the whole main line of Sonic games, I also realize that all of these characters did have their own purposes, backgrounds and personalities, especially when they first got introduced as they just didn't just pop up from existence out of nothing really. What I think why just Sonic got the notorious reputation for too many characters is because of Archie comics and all those OCs from young fans and other spin-offs.
Exactly this. When you do your research there isn’t that many characters( at least playable ).
I also, separate the Classic cast and modern cast of characters which tremendously reduces the characters I want to see playable in a classic styled game (Sonic, Amy, Tails, Knuckles, Mighty, Ray, Fang, Bean, Bark, Honey, Heavy&Bomb, MetalSonic), and characters I want to see playable in a modern game( Sonic, Amy, Tails, Knuckles, Big&Froggy, Cream&Cheese, Shadow, Rouge, Omega, Vector, Charmy, Espio, Blaze, Silver, Jet, Wave, Storm, MetalSonic )
That’s 12 Classic, characters to 18+ modern characters.
Classic characters should only feel different, and have their own jump action.
Modern characters should have unique attacks and ways of transportation
Other than that they all should be able to spin jump, use momentum to build speed and that’s it.
It shouldn’t be so hard to have well known, and popular characters playable again.
Good video but you forgot chip form sonic unleashed cus at end of the game... yea.
Oooh I'll have to check that out again, thanks!
I still wish Tangle and Whisper were playable in a mainline game. I also miss playable Cream, solely for her adorable animations
Cream returned in Dream Team as playable character, so there's that.
Also, Tangle and Whisper could probably get something in Frontiers 2.
I made a Rabbit in Sonic Forces. So far, I like the way I designed her. Sort of has the rookie look and tone.
Sounds good
Characters ranked by how many years it took them to become playable:
21 years: Omochao
11 years: Eggman Nega
9 years: Mephiles
6 years: Zeena
4 years: Maria
3 years: Eggman, EggRobo, Chaos, Tikal, Zazz, Zavok
2 years: Metal Sonic, Shadow Android
1 year: Amy, Fang
0 years: Flicky, Sonic, Tails, Mighty, Ray, Knuckles, Vector, Espio, Charmy, Bomb, Heavy, Bean, Bark, Tails Doll, Metal Knuckles, Big, Gamma, Chao, Shadow, Rouge, Cream, Omega, Emerl, Blaze, Jet, Wave, Storm, every Sonic Riders robot, Silver, Shade, King Arthur, Honey, Sticks, Avatar, Longclaw, Tangle, Whisper
Note: I only counted year numbers for release dates so some may be off by ~1 year if rounded properly. Also all non-video game appearances as well as glitch/planned appearances are excluded. So for example, Vector was originally planned to appear in 1991 and Amy originally debuted in a manga in 1992, but their video game debuts are in 1995 and 1993, respectively.
Thanks! This is absolutely awesome. Funny that Omochao took the longest to become playable (so far) because, well, he's probably the most annoying character!
Minor correction: silver the hedgehog gets his first playable appearance in sonic rivals (2006) for the PSP
Thanks!
Rivals was launched before 06?
@@magolor-3100 In Japan and Europe, yes
You got storm's name as swallow im happy you made this cause I didn't know when who people like eggman or chaos where playable and now I do 😁
Thanks, and good catch!
That glitch sonic was actualy inspiration to make scourge the hedghog in the Archie comics I'm pretty sure
When racing the Chao in the Sonic Adventure games, you didn't actually have any direct control over them... You just got to watch the result of the care you put into raising them.
You forgot everyone's favourite sonic character, only playable in Sonic and all-star racing transformed... Danica Patrick
finally ashura has got some love in his own way through surge the fenrec
Loved the video! IMO Flicky and the Shadow robot are a bit of a stretch, but that’s just my opinion. I never realized how many playable characters there really are!
*How many Sonic characters are there?*
7.4 Billion. XD
If we count all the OC, NPCs, characters' variation and everyone from the comics, tv shows and movies, kinda?
I'm sure this number can be reached only in gacha games based on long lasting rpg series.
Funny how this series has a myriad of characters to choose from, yet nowadays its considered a miracle to have more than just Sonic be playable in a game.
Storm is named Swallow in the graphic
Great video 👍
But you forgot that glitch character from knuckles chaotix 😅
Havent even finished the video but it earned you a subscribe fs. Right up my alley
Thanks for the nice comment Luis, I'm glad you enjoyed the video!
Sonic Rivals i believe may have had characters you could have counted. Metal Sonic 2.0 and 3.0 are technically unique characters tho just pallet swaps in game.
In Sonic Forces I turned my avatar into Sally Acorn because it made the most sense for her to be there in the story.
It's sad, she's never been playable. Just a cameo in Sonic Spinball.
I want Rouge to be more playable .
I was disappointed for a long time that they dropped Fang, seemingly replaced by Big given the shared color scheme, when it really seemed like he was a core cast character prior to Sonic Adventure.
Yeah, Fang made it into 3 games (4 if you include a little cameo in Tails Adventure) and was also going to be in Sonic Xtreme. It makes him quite a prolific early character.
He returned for Superstars as a recurring enemy and as a boss fight for Trip mode, but I'm not sure that's enough for SEGA to reuse him as much as in the past.
I hope to be wrong here, but I fly low when talking about SEGA.
9:49 Ah yes, my favorite Sonic Character: Swallow
Cursed typo
Here's an added character since this video has come out: Infinite, appearing in Sonic Forces: Speed Battle as the first Challenger Rarity Character
Mine, I kid you not was a bird named sega fan (wearing the sega items), then gamer the bird (wearing the gamer hat) then the kink crusader (wearing the knight armor)
I heard the maroon saloon act 2 sound tract in sonic mania and I noticed the back ground loook like sonic mania
Since this videos release Surge the Tenrec has become playable in Sonic Dash & Sonic Forces: Speed Battle.
Marine the Raccoon supposedly has a aquakenesis, and that sounds really cool the play with
Wonder what the modders will do when someone will make Kitsunami playable in fan games.
It'd never happen but I'd like to see a playable version of that mysterious unnamed sonic robot inside the stasis tube in Adventure 1 (or silver sonic if you prefer).
I knew about most of these, but Mephiles being playable in Runners is one of the worst fates to be done.
MAKE HIM A MAIN VILLAIN AGAIN, DAMMIT!
What's even worse is that he was the last character to be added before the game was shut down-
Not a correction but an update. Infinite the Jackal was made playable in Speed Battle a little while ago
You'll have to make another one of these videos one day as I know we've had more characters since then. We've had the debut of Trip in Superstars (along with Metal Tails and Metal Amy if you count them, since they had to be customised in order to play them), along with more characters in the mobile games like Infinite, Surge and Metal Sonic 3.0
Sonic chronicles was such a good game. Highly underrated, insanely good.
15:22 I tried that cheat back in the days. Didn't work for some reason.
I don't think I ever got it to work either, but I loved the idea of playing as Ashura
Back in the 90s I was really into the Archie Sonic comic series (and Sat am, of course), and would have wet my pants in excitement over a game starring all the Freedom Fighters. Wouldn't work that great as a standard Sonic style speed platformer, though, so I would propose either some kind of RPG or a Lost Vikings style puzzle platformer where you switch between the characters, each having their own specialities, and carry out missions against Robotnik.
You may have already seen it, but there's a cancelled game out there dubbed 'Sonic-16' that was proposed and was going to include Sally Acorn, but the idea didn't get Yuji Naka's approval. At least the Freedom Fighters cameoed in Sonic Spinball.
@@JohnnyVector I looked it up cause it didn't really ring a bell. Now that you mention it, I vaguely remember seeing that mockup screenshot of Sonic in a sort of isometric perspective and reading that it would have been based on that version of the Sonic universe. Didn't know the project was referred to as Sonic-16, though, or that it would have been done by the Spinball team. I like Spinball more than many Sonic fans did, and I remember trying to pause during the bonus round to see the Freedom Fighters escape. Nostalgic stuff.
Heres a couple more that may or may not count?:
- light gaia is playable in the final boss of sonic unleashed
-Metal Sonic Nega (3.0) is playable in Sonic Rivals 2
- We dont know who the player is in Dr Robotniks Mean Bean Machine, but it could likely be Arle Najda and Carbuncle
-I might be wrong, but I think Johnny could be playable in SRA if there is a multiplayer mode, you could also technically argue that Marine is the one sailing the boat?
- Froggy is playable in Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing as an All Star move
- The Sonic Androids from Sonic Simulator in Sonic Colours
- theres an easter egg in Sonic Heroes where you can play as Metal Counterparts of all the characters, though this might fall under skins
- Dark Chao is playable in Sonic Adventure 2 in multiplayer
- You can play as Barry in The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog
- There's a pigeon in Sonic 06 called Hatsun, you can play as them in the dating sim Hatoful Boyfriend
My Sonic Forces OC was also called Evil the Moustace. He was a smug b**** of a yellow bird who had a top hat and monocle with moustache
15:26 actually its confirmed that the 3 characters starline, Surge, and Kit the kitsune are all based on glitch characters. Starline being the leftovers of tails in knuckles chaotix, Surge being what you call ashura, and kit being the blue tails glitch from sonic 3
I want to see Tangle and Whisper in a mainline game
So do I, friend. So do I.
Saw someone else beat me to the Chaos Gamma observation. I'll instead posit that the real first instance of playable Chao that I know of was also SA2B where Dark Chao and Chao pilot walker mechs in the multiplayer mode.
Sonic Shuffle was the first for regular Chao, but SA2B was for Dark Chao.
I can't believe Sally hasn't been brought back even with all the mobile games, it seems like she is still relatively popular amongst older fans.
She was actually supposed to be in an older game, but it was scrapped. I don’t remember the name of the game.
Even though they're already playable in other games if they ever reboot Sonic riders I want to see team hooligan as playable just for the interactions between bean and Jet alone.
Look in the Archie comics. There are a few good interactions between them there.
I honestly never realized tails full name was a pun for miles per hour haha D:
Haha my mind was blown when I first realised.
If you’re talking about mainline modern games such as Colors all the way to Frontiers, just Sonic.
If Sonic is really going for that teamwork and friendship and collaboration moral, Sonic should really let the others do their parts as characters in levels.
mainline sonic doesnt start at colors wut
Love Jet, Wave amd swallow
It's funny how Sonic Force's speed battle gonna keep adding more characters as long the game continues
Because they just now added infinite as a playable character
Most of them are just reskin of existing characters, so quite the artificious way to increase the count.
Moreso if they got more to get between Classic and Modern games.
Correction: Eggman NEGA is a descendant of Dr. Eggman. He often travels to other dimensions and across time and space.
i haven't really played Forces. btw, i saw one youtuber having more of them, can you create infinite of them post-game? (the avatar i mean)
Never tought a tiny birb would be a hero at some point
Kinda wild that Chaos and Tikal both made their first playable debut a game after the last story they were featured in.
Well Chaos technically featured in Sonic Battle's final chapter.
@@WolforNuva I still wonder how and why he came out of the Master Emerald.
It was cool, I'm not gonna lie.
Since i was a child i always conceder night and amigo as a sonic characters cause they appered a lot in sonic games as a refrencess or as a playable characters
here before it hits 5k views, and i hope it hits atleast 500k
Thanks for watching!
Since this video came out 3 years ago there have been a few more characters debuting in games.
In the new update of sonic dash you can play as
surge the tenrec from the new IDW comics
Nine from sonic prime infinite from sonic forces
Chuck and red from angry birds
Sonic superstars debuted
The rabbit concept I think is called max the rabbit
Mecha sonic from sonic 2 and metal Amy and tails are available in battle mode
This is not a new character but classic Amy is playable in sonic origins
Damn you even got honey the cat in here.
Haha yeah, a few people commented that I'd missed her when I breezed past Sonic the Fighters first time
"Not going to include characters from other franchises"
*Starts of with Flicky from Flicky - A character and franchise that, to my knowledge, predates the first Sonic game, therefore excluding it as a viable canidate.*
Much like Donkey Kong isn't seen as part of the Mario franchise, even though Mario was the protagonist of the early DK games, and DK regularly appears in Mario games.
aren't the knight versions of everyone in black night technically different characters? like I think they're actually entirely different people who just happen to resemble main universe sonic characters and I'd say that means they're not just variants (although I might not be remembering and they might have been revealed to actually be the same characters, I haven't played the game since I was a kid so)
Yes I think that's true actually
They still count as variants for the purposes of this video, they also have the same powers as their counterparts so there's no point in including them
my avatar was literally a kea bird (look it up)
personally called him Torrid, because i thought "that's a good name for a Sonic character, riight?".
Well, ashura kinda got a counterpart in the idw with surge
04:35 hold on I remember seen Bean playable in Sonic drift 2
Does it bother anyone else that the only characters in Knuckles chaotix with ears are Mighty and Metal Sonic?
I'm not sure if this fact is important but Whisper the Wolf was at least inspired by wolf Avatar. Some of the comic creators said.
Nice one, didn't know that, thanks