Who the @#%!! is Eggman?

Okay, so every now and then some Sonic Plebe will ask the following:

"In Sonic the Hedgehog, we were fighting the bad guy Doctor Robotnik, right? Then who the heck is Eggman? He looks just like Robotnik, so why did they change his name?"

My response is usually something along the lines of, "Please just accept that he is called Eggman in the games. I promise you don't want to know."

"Oh ho ho, I'm called Eggman because my nose looks like an EGGplant! Get it? HOHOHO--No but seriously, I have no idea."

But you wanted to know, you assholes. You wanted to know. Well, I don't see anyone bugging King Koopa about being turned into Bowser, but you know what? I'll give you the lowdown on Doctor Robotnik. You cool? I'm cool. Let's do this.

First, you need to understand some history, and "history" is a very broad term here because if you just play the video games, you literally do not know any of this. But let's make some stuff clear for you. The guy in the video games, from the first Sonic game all the way to the end... he was not originally named Ivo Robotnik. Okay? That's not his real name. Granted, that was probably the first name he got from the developers of the Sonic comics, but his "real name" as in "birth name" was not Ivo Robotnik, because that's too on the nose for a series whose main character has a best friend who's name is just a joke about speed. Uh... not the drug. I mean, like... speed.

BUT ADORABLE, SO ADORABLE!

Nope. Doctor Ivo Robotnik is actually one Julian Kintobor of the House of Ivo. But you want to know what's confusing about that? His dad is named Ivo Kintobor. Which is weird because I'm not sure I really get why Robotnik didn't stick with the Julian first name. Not evil enough? Anyway, Julian is the son of Ivo and Bertha Kintobor and has an older brother named Colin, who got married twice (once to Miriam Day and once to Angela Hopkins, but they're both dead) and Colin had two kids: Colin Jr. and Hope. Colin Jr. is more often known as Snively. You know... of Sonic SatAM fame?

Okay, so... more questions, right? Robotnik has family, so what happened to them and how come Robotnik is so evil? Was his family all a bunch of evil people? To that I have to sigh and tell you about the name Robotnik.

This was retconned so hard it hurts, but originally Robotnik was just a moniker for Julian because I guess he needed one. But the games don't follow the comic continuity (I actually like the comics, but I'm still going to say thank god for small miracles), so in the games, it seemed like he was always just named Dr. Robotnik. Now, Gerald (when the series started) didn't exist, so they had to retcon (retcon meaning retroactive continuity, just in case we're not clear) Gerald into existence. At first it seems like we aren't actually retconning since Gerald never existed but there was a place for him to exist, but remember that Robotnik was initially just a moniker in the comic series. Now, I've read (most) of the comics and I don't remember Gerald being brought up until Shadow was brought up since their stories are intertwined. Because of that the retcon seems more obvious in the comics since the two names (Kintobor and Robotnik) are reversals of each other and it doesn't seem like Julian put very much thought into his new evil name initially. In the games, there's no sign of retconning at all. Again, Kintobor as a name doesn't exist in the games. So when Gerald from the comic books was introduced, it only went to follow that he would have the name "Robotnik" as well in the games even though the enemy at the time was Dr. Eggman.

So the timeline works like this: In the comics, Gerald doesn't exist until they need him in the Shadow arc. Then he is created and added to Robotnik's history retroactively. But instead of being named Kintobor in the comics (which would have made him Julian's paternal grandfather and kept the story the same as always), he was given the last name Robotnik to match with the character Julian was at the time, Ivo Robotnik. But then someone pointed out that in the past, Ivo Robotnik was Julian Kintobor, so Gerald ended up being Julian's maternal grandfather and when he names himself Robotnik, he takes the name from his grandfather. In the games, Robotnik was never Julian Kintobor (technically), so that making Gerald's last name Robotnik makes total sense. Except for the part where Robotnik no longer exists, and all that remains is Eggman.

Since Julian's maternal grandfather was Gerald Robotnik, his mother Bertha was once Bertha Robotnik, and in order for Maria Robotnik to exist and be his cousin, he had at least one maternal uncle (with the inspired name Geraldo, like he was an Italian version of his father or something) who was married and gave birth to her. And, get this, Gerald Robotnik, Bertha Robotnik, Geraldo Robotnik, and Gerald's wife Jennifer Vasquez? None of these people are evil.

But Gerald was in prison for turning against the government.

Granted, Gerald can be seen as evil when you think a bit about his storyline and why he created Shadow to be the way Shadow is. You see, due to no one wanting to tell this story (or they did and I haven't read this part yet?), Maria doesn't live with her parents and has Neuro-Immuno Deficiency Disorder or NIDS. NIDS is possibly fatal, rare, and of course, incurable. But before you start getting up in arms about it, there is one other character who has this particular ailment, so while yes it is just an up-the-ante-esque way to get Maria aboard ARK, it does show up within the Sonic timeline more than once. And it is a plot device both times it shows up. Also, it only shows up in women right now.

On the inside, they're crying.

Anyway, Gerald Robotnik wanted to create a cure for NIDS, but that funding just wasn't happening. But he got help from the Republic of Station Square and was able to go forth researching a cure for his grand daughter by, I kid you not, working on a way to make immortality a real thing. This is about to get wicked convoluted, but I'm not here to explain Shadow, so I'll make this quick: Gerald gets in contact with the Black Arms race leader Black Doom, who is immortal and has Chaos Control, and gets his help by telling him he will make Project: Shadow into a weapon, but double crosses him. Gerald eventually makes Shadow and the BioLizard or the "ARK Monster". Shadow is to be used to defend the world from Black Doom, but then the Guardian Units of the Nation (GUN) heard about Shadow and want to use him for a weapon themselves. Gerald, not having any of that shit, tells Maria to take Shadow and go to an escape pod but Maria gets shot in the back when she tries to save herself and Shadow (seemingly on purpose, which calls a LOT into question about GUN, but I'm not here to make you aware of the politics of Mobius). Original Shadow, however, escapes. GUN finds Original Shadow after ordering Gerald to make them another Shadow (which of course, they ask after they tell him his granddaughter's dead) and Gerald, correctly assuming that they killed her, reprograms Original Shadow to take revenge on the whole planet. But then, afterwards, he tries to create another Shadow for GUN, and GUN isn't sure if he's dicking around so they kill him. There was never a cure for NIDS. So, an old man who out of love for his "only granddaughter" (considering that Hope is his great granddaughter, you get a pass, Gerald... but a very narrow pass) went to work on a project that should've been impossible succeeds only to watch his granddaughter die before him and then gets killed after that. He seemed like a sweet old guy to me, but other people have other opinions of him. But the only reason I even told you this story is because this is the only person who, in Robotnik's current family, could be considered someone who "turned evil". He consorts with clearly evil people, tries to take revenge on a planet, and reneges on two promises to deliver weaponry into client's hands. But your mileage may vary here. Technically, you could argue Gerald isn't evil because he consorts with Black Arms to complete the weapon for GUN, who were putting him in a tight spot by only giving him the money to cure NIDS if he did an altogether shitty thing in the first place. He does things that evil people would do, but does that make him evil? I don't know, I'm not here to discuss that.

In other news, Bertha and Ivo are both normal (Bertha doesn't seem to be the genius that her father was) and have supposedly normal kids, except for the part where Julian is a super genius.

If you consider his track record, this image is accurate.

Colin is a surprisingly heroic older brother figure who teases Julian, who as you will recall is a genius, and generally is just luckier in life than his younger brother. He gets married twice and has two kids, but if you watched Sonic SatAM you already know that Snively exists. But, what you didn't know (maybe) is that Snively was not named Snively by Julian, but by Colin. Snively was raised by Colin because Miriam (Snively's mother and Colin's first wife) died and Colin had no idea how to parent his son. So Snively starts becoming rascal-like and silly, which makes Colin straight up disown him. I didn't read this comic that detailed this, so I don't actually know what Snively did that was so bad that he was disowned but the whole reason I bring this up is, out of literally everyone in his family, only Snively is someone you can consider "evil"... and it's a purely coincidental thing, because Snively isn't completely evil and does do things that are good. In fact, he does them often enough that you could consider him a double agent or an anti-hero at times. But just so you can be sure that no one in Robotnik's family is evil, Hope is named Hope because she is good and also because she is literally just Maria. Shadow becomes friends with her and everything. Okay to be perfectly honest, I absolutely hate Hope because she's literally just Elise from Sonic 2006 to me. But the point is that she isn't an evil person, she's actually very good.

So, now that we know that pretty much no one in Julian's family was evil, the question remains-- who the @#%!! is Eggman, am I right?

Okay. Now, pay attention, because this is going to get silly quick. No sugar coating, let's get to the meat of things.

Julian was born to Bertha and Ivo Kintobor and thought that they loved Colin more than him and thought Colin was annoying. But Julian was a super genius and trained under Dr. Nate Morgan. Nate was a really nice guy who created the Power Rings. I'm not going to explain those right now, but they're important. Anyway, Julian waited until Nate taught him everything he knew... then he staged an explosion and blamed Nate, banishing him from his labs.

I'm sorry, Nate. D:

Okay, so here's something you probably didn't understand but you need to to move on. There are humans, there are Overlanders, and there are Mobians and all of these races live on Mobius. When you play the games, you usually end up in a place called Station Square or Central City-- these are not on "Earth" per se. It's long and complicated, okay, but humans are like... ancient. They've all been changed into Overlanders via Gene Bombs. Gene Bombs were created by the Xorda (aquatic alien life forms who mastered intergalactic travel-- no seriously) and basically it changed humans from having five fingers to four. It was honestly supposed to be worse. Further it changed Earth to become more like Mesopotamia (again, it was supposed to be worse) and the inhabitants changed the name of Earth to Mobius. But it did one "good" thing: evolved animals to be like humans. The Gene Bombs also created the Chaos Emeralds and caused the first Day of Fury (Days of Fury are global disturbances that-- fuck it, you don't care, it's not really important right now). So, to reiterate, most humans (most because there are references to humans, but the references don't ever really state if the humans are currently living or ancient) are dead, Overlanders are de-evolved humans, Mobians are mutated animals, and Mobius is Mutated Earth . Get it? Got it? Good.

Here, have some reference material.

Now. What you need to understand is that the Mobians in the Kingdom of Acorn were trying to form a single civilization using every species and race in the world. They tried to include all species, but Overlanders were too aggressive and xenophobic, so the ruler at the time (Alexander) decided to leave them out. As such, the Overlanders were a complete mystery to the Mobians. Alexander's son made friends with an Overlander and was accidentally killed by the man with a gun. Alexander happened to see the Overlander leave (and to be honest, there was nothing the Overlander could've done, since they weren't like, besties or anything) and so he decided that there would be a no-gun policy in the Kingdom of Acorn. This ruffled the feathers of the Overlanders, so tensions started to get high.

Remember Nate Morgan? He was banished from his lab and ended up living amongst the Mobians, the first of his kind to do so. Nate was trying to make a clean power source... the Power Rings. The Power Rings plus the Chaos Emeralds allowed the Mobians to get better technology (Mobians are especially conscious of the environment because they're animals, you guys) and they flourished for a while. Until the sorcerer Ixis Naugus vilified Nate because Nate's science made his magic useless. He worked with a Mobian war hero, Kodos Lion, to vilify Nate by using his magic to amplfy the hatred that a nearby group of Overlanders felt towards the Mobians and then told the current King, Maximillion, that Nate told the Overlanders the location of the Kingdom of Acorn. Nate self-exiled himself (such a nice guy, jeez) because he didn't know if what Naugus said was true. What I mean is, he thought maybe that his existence with the Mobians was the problem, so he left. Kodos tried to kill Naugus so that Naugus couldn't, at some point, put any blame on him... but Naugus escaped to the Zone of Silence so that he could gain power and then rule what remained of the kingdoms. Kodos then locked the Zone of Silence to prevent Naugus from escaping. Still with me? Good. What followed was the Great War.

Back to Julian. He was an engineer for the Overlanders and created items for the military including a prototype weaponized satellite called the Ultimate Annihilator. But Julian used living Overlanders to test his weaponry. When he was found out, Colin (who was the Minister of Justice) sentenced him to ten years of imprisonment. Julian escaped imprisonment and made it to the Badlands where he was found by the hedgehog brothers Jules and Charles (also students of Nate Morgan). Jules is Sonic's father and Charles, his brother, is often known as Uncle Chuck. Despite Charles being skeptical of Julian, Jules convinces his brother to save Julian. Julian swears allegiance to the Kingdom of Acorn and gives them the technology to fight the Overlanders, which turns the war in the favor of the Mobians, who then ultimately win.  Also, this is pretty important: Jules worked alongside a hedgehog named Bernadette. She was his partner during the war and they liked each other, so they got married and had Sonic. Not now, but if I don't mention it now I'd have to mention it later.

Bernadette is adorable. And she's hugging Sonic here, by the way

Kodos took Julian under his wing (despite being xenophobic of Overlanders) and decided that he wanted to overthrow the King and rule the world with Julian, who agreed that world domination was awesome but not if he had to share the power, so he banished Kodos to the Zone of Silence. Julian took Kodos' title of Warlord. He was later joined by Snively.

Kodos was also kind of a crappy guy.

Let's take a breather. You're probably wondering what any of this has to do with a name change. Patience. If I just came out and told you "This is what happened," you'd have questions like "how" or "why". No, you need to actually understand what's happening to really get this.

Okay. You good? Let's jump back in.

Julian decided that if he was to take over the world, he wouldn't make the mistake the last two guys did-- i.e., he wouldn't share his plans with someone who would overthrow him by making sure everyone under him was lesser than him (Snively) or were cyborgs. This required testing, but because he didn't want to be caught like he  had been with the Overlanders, he picked people from another settlement to practice his schemes on. Ultimately, only one Mobian survived, Monkey Khan (or Ken Khan). Monkey Khan was roboticized where his people were killed, and used by Julian until he rebelled. Julian locked him away and started thinking about removing free will from cyborgs as a necessary next step.

Simultaneously, Charles had come up with a machine to prolong the lives of the sick and elderly, a Roboticiser. Julian tampered with it to make it remove the subject's free will and make the subject follow his commands. Jules was injured badly and Charles unknowingly made Jules into Julian's first victim. Heartbroken, Charles apologized to Bernadette (who had just had Sonic) and stepped down from his role as Minister of Science and left the Kingdom for a while. However, there was another way to win the war without the Roboticiser, and Julian decided to go for that. He arranged a duel between the two sides and assumed that one side would kill the other. However, Maximillion won but didn't kill the Overlander. Julian was going to fail, but Charles turned over the Roboticiser to him.

I'm so sorrieeeeeeee

Bernadette discovered that Julian tampered with the machine and was using Jules, which made Julian toss her into the machine and Charles came back to discover that she was no longer responding, like his brother. He took Sonic under his wing.

Since Maximillian had won the war (thanks mostly to Julian), he agreed to remove the status of Warlord and get rid of the military completely as Julian wished. He also planned on making Julian into the Minister of Science. This was all going according to plan, until Amadeus Prower figured out Julian's plans-- and on the date of his son's birth, no less! And Julian tossed him into the Roboticiser.

He wasn't amused.

Okay, so if you've seen the opening to Sonic SatAM, you should pretty much know the next part.  Literally from 0:14 to 0:15 is what happened when Julian was given power during the victory presentation. He robotocised almost every Mobian and then exiled Maximillian to the Zone of Silence. And this was where Julian got his first name change: he changed his name from Julian Kintobor to Ivo Robotnik.

Then the Freedom Fighters started threatening his rule. Robotnik was in trouble, because the Original Freedom Fighters were serious business and they took out a lot of his labs. He managed to get one of the members, a snake named Trey Scales, to turn against the group. Then Robotnik turned against him, roboticised all of them, and put them in the Zone of Silence. And, uh... then they all died afterwards.

This guy had nothing to do with it. Oh, wait, I'm sorry, I mean he had everything to do with their deaths.

Robotnik went into the Zone of Silence, determined that he really didn't need to be there (and Naugus pretty much owned the Zone) so he left with Snively's help and determined that he wasn't ever going back. Instead he focused really hard on ruling what he did have.

But that's where Sonic came in. Sonic grew up with Chuck, who abandoned science to run a chili dog stand, and had met Robotnik as Julian when he was a child. He didn't even like him them. Chuck was roboticised and Sonic and Sally decided to form a Freedom Fighter unit themselves. So, you know. They did. Their base was the Knothole, a stump in the Great Forest, and they were known as the Knothole Freedom Fighters.

Robotnik tried really hard to kill Sonic. Really, really hard. He failed with Exceptionally Versatile Evolvanoid (E.V.E.) made from Sonic's cells and Robotnik's brain cells. Programmed to learn and adapt, E.V.E. learned that she could just exceed her programming and straight up shot him into an alternate dimension where he met another version of himself, Robo-Robotnik. (Just FYI, an alternate dimension in the Sonic universe GENERALLY SPEAKING is a world similar to Mobius, but usually with a different history, some extremely similar and some really different.) The Robotnik in the universe he was thrust into had become nothing more than a computer program, but Robotnik persuaded him to kill Sonic, who had forced him to upload his consciousness into a computer, and Robo-Robonik agreed before sending Robotnik back to fight his own version of Sonic again. Robotnik failed a few more times.

But he failed with a smile.

He achieved success when he partnered up with Nack the Weasel, who knocked Sonic out and brought him to Robotnik. Robotnik kicked Nack out of the city for his trouble. Sonic was turned into Mecha Sonic, and Mecha Sonic was a damn terror. Fortunately, Tails recruited Knuckles, who was injured until Sally used a portable roboticiser to make Knuckles into Mecha Knuckles and then gave Knuckles his free will with a Neuro-Overrider. He saves Sonic and they both become organic again (by different means).

The group saves Maximillion from the Zone of Silence and Robotnik gets wicked pissed. But Max's release leaves a neutron reading that allows Robotnik to discover the Knothole. And thus he creates Operation: EndGame.

EndGame was a very complex plan with many steps that sometimes failed and sometimes succeeded. He tried to murder Sally and frame Sonic for the murder, and he tried to infiltrate the Knothole with an automated version of King Acorn. And then he just showed up at their doorstep, apropos of nothing. He doesn't kill them, preferring to use them as test subjects for the Ultimate Annihilator. Remember that? Yeah, well now it can warp reality and erase matter.

Sonic is furious about Sally's murder and the two engage in MORTAL KOMBAT! But Robonik still activated the Ultimate Annihilator. It would've been perfect, but Snively had tampered with the machine, coding it to target only Robotnik's DNA. So by activating the machine... he destroyed himself.

Yeah. Robotnik? Erased. The end. Vamoose.

And that would've been it. The end of a story. The end of a great. But Sonic's story is more convoluted than this. See what you've just learned, what we know now, this is all occurring on Mobius Prime. But there are other Mobius's, other parallel worlds. Now. Robotnik Prime had come into contact with a Robotnik from a parallel world with a similar backstory, Robo-Robotnik, remember? That alternate universe Robotnik actually benefited from Robotnik Prime showing up in his world. He had gone mad after his universe's Sonic forced him to upload his consciousness to a computer. But Robotnik Prime told him to continue his reign, and Robo-Robotnik changed.  He pulled himself together, building himself a robot body (with something it is literally too time consuming to explain) and killing his universe's Sonic (who was a king and had kids with Sally at that time) as well as literally anyone else he could get his hands on (so... you know everyone). But upon hearing that his savior had been killed, he went to Mobius Prime to avenge him and to "fill the void".

"Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Robotnik!"

Sonic Prime and the others of Mobius Prime literally had ONE YEAR without Robotnik before Robo-Robonik came, and then the dude came and was even more conniving than Robotnik Prime. He caused an avalanche, brought secret satellites from his home dimension, released the imprisoned Snively (don't ask, that's a whole different story), and tricked Sonic and the others to think Robonik Prime was back from the dead by wearing a skin suit that was subsequently burned off with acid. After a fight (and finding Sonic's parents) the Freedom Fighters escape Robo-Robotnik, seemingly killing him. But Robo-Robotnik just uploaded his consciousness to another body under his capital.

And, my friends, this new body... this is Doctor Eggman. Guys. HE KILLED SONIC. HE DID IT ONCE. THAT WAS A THING THAT HAPPENED, FOR REALS.

So the next time you look at Doctor Eggman and think, "Shouldn't he be dead?" just remember that as long as he continues building bodies, he can just upload his consciousness wherever he wants. And also, he's murdered Sonic before. That's a real thing that happened. A real thing.

So who is Dr. Eggman? Somebody worse than Dr. Robotnik. Somebody way, way worse.

Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood

Hey, remember that time I said I was done reviewing Sonic games? I lied.

Learning from the king.

See, you can't keep me from Sonic games. Me, Sonic, Nintendo DS-- that's three great tastes that taste great together, if we were all edible things and if that didn't sound even the slightest bit odd. Look, the point is that I play far too many Sonic games. And I watched a lot of Arnold movies. Maybe not that second part. Today's game is Sonic Chronicles. (Sorry about the lack of pictures of in game stuff though. Hopefully long dry paragraphs are more your thing. No?)

Look, here's the thing, nerds, Sonic has a storied and altogether faulty past with games that aren't just "press right, dodge enemies". He's not like Mario, who is pretty much just... copy pasting himself through games and he's not like Megaman, who has no problems because he is God.

This guy gets it.

But here's the problem. Sonic is way more story driven than his counterparts. Think about it (honestly). If you were to pick one of these three characters who has constantly changing plotlines and relatively complex ideas, who would it be? (We are only counting the series of Megaman where Megaman is Megaman, and not some kid dressed as Megaman, or Zero, or the crazy ZX Advent game. Just Classic Megaman.)

If you picked Mario, you're lying. Seriously. Luigi's a completely different matter, but Mario is pretty much just the story of a guy in overalls who really just wants to go home but crazy girls in multicolored dresses keep showing up and demanding he save them for no good reason. And then, you know, he does exactly that.

WHERE THE FUCK WAS MY CAKE WHEN I SAVED YOU IN MARIO 2?!

Megaman is the story of Dr Wahwee and his Master Robots who, surprisingly, get beaten by a guy in a blue suit with a pellet gun. So... not masters. Also there's a couple other people in the game.

And then none of them beat Megaman, and Dr. Wily fell into bankruptcy.

I'm not saying Sonic games are smart, because if Sonic 2006 is any indication, Sonic is probably the stupidest of the three. But Sonic also has the distinct difference in that at the very least, the games aren't same-y story wise. I mean, SEGA just saves the same-y part for the gameplay. Even then they try to switch it up. They tried turning him into a werewolf and even characters from stories. I don't know what Sonic 2006 was even trying to be. Sonic can't survive in the 3D world without a gimmick of sorts, and with Mario blanding his way through the ages, Sonic often resorts to the kind of gimmicks that send him from semi-healthy to critical condition.

"But... uh, you," You say, stymied, "What does this have to do with Sonic Chronicles?"

Well, reader, the difference between Sonic Chronicles and the majority of the Sonic library is that Sonic Chronicles is an RPG. And it's possibly the crappiest Sonic game I have ever played. And I touched the unholy wasteland that is Sonic 2006.

I...can't get clean...

I... don't actually know where to start with this, because I should like it. Initially, I did. Hell, I loved it. I don't even hate it now, I just think it's kind of crappy. But, it's weird because it's got all these great aspects to it and I still don't like it.

It's an interesting take on Sonic and went into some story that no one cares about... I ate that up. It's an RPG, of all things. Awesome. And BioWare, as in Mass Effect BioWare, as in Knights of the Old Republic BioWare, that BioWare-- they developed this game. BioWare, you guys. Three great tastes that should taste great together... and I think I ended up with a mouthful of mud.

This guy gets it.

Sonic Chronicles isn't diabolically bad. I mean, history books definitely won't be like, "This one time, SEGA made this game worse than Sonic 2006 in the Sonic franchise, and it's the ruler by which we measure crappy Sonic games since then." But it's not good. It's not the kind of game you tell your friends to play because you want them to enjoy themselves, but you can't tent your fingers and chuckle in your swivel chair with that long-haired white cat you just bought after they start playing either.

I guess if we're going to tackle this bad boy, I might as well start with the story. Most Sonic stories are probably crap to... okay, everyone, but I liked this one. Without revealing too much, Sonic is vacationing after beating the Egg Carrier. I think it's the first one, but only because I don't want to think about the alternative.

This was the only Egg Carrier. This was the only Egg Carrier. This was the only Egg Carrier.

Also, in a weirdly dark twist for a Sonic game, they think Eggman's dead. The dude survived a fall from space, guys. Nothing short of a miracle can kill this guy.

Tails calls Sonic, because Tails is adorable and the plot needs to move on, and says things like, "Chaos emeralds taken" and "Knuckles missing" and presumably, to incite Sonic to move, "chili dog shortage, need assistance," and Sonic decides it couldn't hurt to show up and bash in heads. Tails says the chili dog thieves are called the Marauders. Also they pretty much just kidnapped Knuckles, took the Chaos Emeralds, and there are no chili dogs.

Sonic meets up with his possy (Tails and Amy) and goes to save Knuckles. But he needs help from some other familiar faces, like Rouge and Shadow, and e-123 Omega, and... BIG THE MOTHERFUCKING CAT?!

For shame, BioWare.

I thought we were phasing this guy out. Why is this a thing? Why is this a thing?!

Anyway, as soon as they find Knuckles, shit really hits the fan. It's a really well told story that I'm not going to ruin with aborted humor.

If I like the story, then what do I dislike? Is it the controls?

Well, to be fair, the controls are pretty straightforward and easy to use. I don't really have a problem with them. You use the same sensibilities you would for most RPGs. Any button progresses the dialogue (if you're in the middle of a dialogue, obviously), make a choice with A, back out of menus with B, move with the D-pad-- do I have to get out my arrow key diagram? Because I can do that.

The button ---> moves you to the right.

Okay, so it's not the controls and it's not the story. So what is it? Is it some element of the gameplay? Hmm... Now that I'm thinking about it...

Let's talk about the Chao. You know them. Cute little guys, introduced in Sonic Adventure? If SEGA actually wanted to make a buttload of money, they'd just keep adding "develop your own chao" mini games to regular campaigns. I'm just saying that Sonic Adventure 2 was a blast because the story and the Chao were just all too good to be true. Surprisingly, though, they took a breather from the Chao. That's fine. It's cute, it's a great idea, but you don't want to wear out your welcome. I get it. But you know, you can't go from fully customization Chao to this watered down version of "caring" for Chao eggs.

Sonic, from time to time, will find a chao egg and pick it up. After a little while, a Chao hatches. Bam. That's what we get for Chao this time. On top of that, you can get multiples of the same Chao, which of course means you're not even naming them. And they're just an equippable item, on top of that, ones that can't level up unless you have a friend playing the game with you. Sonic Chronicles isn't a 3DS title, so you didn't have the SpotPass feature when it came out. You have to either bully someone into playing with you or hopefully have a group of friends playing the game at the same time.

Just so that you can trade away three extra copies of this guy.

I mean, there are a lot of Chao, and they're all really cute, but... it's such a let down that this is what they are now. Just things that Sonic and his party equip. I barely used them, on top of that, because if you don't have a friend to play with, they tend to be not very helpful at all. See, in that picture above, there's a line that says "Level: 1". If you don't have a friend to play with, just get used to that, because the Chao don't level up otherwise. That is crap.

"But... what's your name again? Look, they can't just dump the customizatiable chao thing into this game. That's a really big feature." You say. Right you are, reader. But that's not really an excuse for this, is it? Up until this game, Chao haven't played such a huge role. You need to get the Chao in Sonic Advance, for example, but it's only so that you can get 100% completion, if you want to. Technically, you don't have to use the Chao in Sonic Adventure/Sonic Adventure 2 either, only if you want 100% completion. In this game it's kind of hard not to use them after a while, because it's an RPG and you take what boosts you can get... you could say that you don't have to use them-- I didn't-- but I feel like this game kind of pushes the Chao onto you instead of letting you choose to use the Chao. And even with their current system, there's a way to make improvements. I mean, why can't you have four slots for "Original Chao", where you can breed some of the chao you've found and make four babies with the looks and the name and the skills that you want? Why not have the leveling up feature take place in the Chao Kindergarten, which costs rings depending on level? Why not have the trade feature be one of many features with the chao-- why not also have a "play" option that allows you to level up chao faster than you can in the Kindergarten? I'm asking why they made the Chao, one of the most interesting and fun aspects of new Sonic, so... boring. It's so boring, I barely wrote any jokes into the last two paragraphs. 

This guy gets it.

And while we're on the topic of boring, try repetitive. The battle system is annoying and really, really repetitive, but requires that you watch the screen. It's kind of like playing a rhythm game... but exactly the opposite of that. I mean, the special moves are an absolute mess in my opinion.

I get it, we're playing an RPG... but I don't see why they just didn't go the Persona 3 route and have Sonic tell everyone what he wants them to do generally and then just pick an attack and then go. The "hit detection" on that red circle there is absolutely arbitrary, because sometimes if I drag across quickly, the thing's like, "HOLY CRAP, YOU DID IT!" and other times it's like, "...Man, you suck." It's the same if I go slowly or at the pace of the circle. I've seen other people do it with ease and it makes me wonder if I just suck... but then I remember I did this exact thing in Elite Beat Agents, which I beat on the highest difficulty. So it might just be this game, then.

Err... yeah, I... guess this guy gets it?

On top of that, there's a system where you have to tap on bubbles on the screen or repeatedly tap inside a circle. Why not just have some classic Sonic gameplay in there somewhere? I don't get it-- did BioWare look at the older Sonic games and go, "Yeah... fuck all of that" and then decide to do this? Or were they like, "You run enough on the map screens and to escape battles or chase enemies, no more of Sonic doing Sonic related things at least until the end of this battle, maybe longer"? Are you telling me "Press A to jump, press A two times to hit an enemy" was too hard to do?

OK, so it WAS too hard then?

There's a battle counter on the top screen that's okay... I don't have much to say about it outside of I'm sure you could've done better, BioWare. I have that much faith in you.

Then there's the results screen and the difficulty. No, please, allow me to give you my opinion in .gif form.

Hey, people who are developing Sonic games, Sonic != Devil May Cry. I don't know why you randomly decided we needed to be told we sucked in letter form, but I'll tell you one thing-- if you're going to do it, at the very least make it some kind of fair. I can S rank most things in Sonic games, mostly from repeated plays. I have played this game twice, total, and I can count the number of times I've gotten an S rank on my hands. Which I bet would make you think the game is hard, but it's actually so easy that I just spammed the same move all the time when I realized it literally kills everything, until I couldn't use it anymore (POW uses PP and once that runs out you need to use an item if you're in the field). So, yeah, if you go from  one-hit KOs to taking four or five turns to kill things... you do tend to start getting lower grades. And as the game progressed I found myself getting bored because, while the story is great, you still have to play the game to further it and that is kind of annoying to do. It took me a year to beat this game the first time. Not in hours, I mean. I bought it, played it for like a week, and then switched it out for Rhapsody. I went back to it and beat it in another week. I don't even know how many hours it took. 

But I like this game, I just... don't like this game. Say what you will about Sonic 2006-- and trust me, I take potshots at Sonic 2006 like it's going out of style, but you at least were engaged in it. this game isn't engaging. It was just boring. Like this review. I tied it all together, right Arnold?

Jeez, alright, alright.

Knuckles Chaotix

I promise I’m done looking at Sonic games. Well... no, I can’t promise that. I’m just really into Sonic, pre-Wii era Sonic anyway, and there’s a ton of games featuring Sonic characters that don’t really get that much air time. I mean, let’s face it, when people think about Sonic, they think about the Sonic Quartet-- all Genesis games that were all... well, really great, but still! How many people think of Tails Adventure when they think of Sonic games? Or Sonic Triple Trouble? Or, hell, Knuckles Chaotix?

You shut up.

Despite the fact that damn near no one I’ve met even knew this game existed, Sonic Heroes managed to stick three of the four characters that no one’s ever heard of into its game, making Sonic Heroes responsible for the re-emergence of four characters featured in unpopular games. Yay! But also Big.

Oh god I want to punch you.

Knuckles Chaotix, or just Chaotix, was released on the 32X in 1995. Don’t worry, if you’re like any other sane human being, you probably never played it. That’s because the 32X is a BEAST of a peripheral, requiring its own power source and no more than two connections to the Genesis. It was just difficult. But if you’re like me and you did have the 32X, don’t worry. You’re not insane. But I imagine you were pissed off with the 32X’s power adaptor.

Anyway, Knuckles Chaotix is a strange game as far as Sonic is concerned. Firstly, Knuckles Chaotix is really long, in comparison to most Sonic games. I guess it’s shorter than Sonic 3 and Knuckles, but it was longer than Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles if you looked at the games separately.  So it has a save feature, which is similar to the one in Sonic 3. Yeah, some of you are like, “So what? I beat Sonic 3 in two minutes and I was giving birth and building rockets and playing chess at the same time!” Knuckles Chaotix is much longer, and it’s probably because the gameplay style isn’t the same as any of the other Sonic games until at least around the Gameboy Advance era.

In Sonic 2, SEGA added Tails as a secondary character for two players and since then, Tails has been a re-occuring and relatively welcomed character, despite the fact that for some reason he’s always just building stuff when he can fly and swim. Well, Tails’ inclusion in Sonic 2 pointed out a major flaw in AI at the time. Mostly, AI is stupid. If you don’t want the AI character to beat the game, then you have to dumb it down. But when you do that, the AI starts doing things that you don’t want it to do, like stepping on breakable bridges before you can reach them, or repeatedly killing itself instead of helping you. It is possible to create AI that isn’t completely retarded, but I guess no one thought Tails was that bad in Sonic 2. Boy, were they wrong.

Oh, but I love you anyway! You're so cute!

So Knuckles Chaotix set about it at least trying to make a second player AI that wasn’t dumb. They did this by introducing Ring Power. Ring Power allows for a lot of cool gameplay elements. Ring Power lets you call your partner to you, allows you to have your partner stand still and lets you use them as a sling, and even makes it possible for you to reach high places. But it makes the AI second player pretty much do nothing but follow you around, which, while it sounds awesome, is actually kind of annoying. You could at least count on hilarious Tails deaths with Sonic 2, right?

DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE

So again, not so much with Knuckles Chaotix. You get to choose from Knuckles, Mighty, Espio, Vector, and Charmy, but if those names confuse you, that’s because these characters are actually from the Sonic Comic series. Yes, there are hundreds more Sonic Furry Pals (TM) that have yet to be seen in the games. For all of you wondering, here’s a picture of what you’re missing:

Also Robotnik is dead and Eggman is a computer version of him from an alternate universe (not pictured)

“Gee whiz,” you say, presumably because you’re from like, the 1950s, “I’m learning a lot about Sonic today, but not too much about Knuckles Chaotix. How about you do your job there, bucko?”

Right, well. About Knuckles Chaotix... Despite it being connected to the Death Egg Saga, it is NOT a part of the Death Egg Saga. (The Death Egg Saga are those games having to do with the creation and use of the Death Egg by Dr. Robotnik.) This game takes place after Sonic and Knuckles, which takes place after Sonic 3, which takes place after Sonic 2. To recap: Dr. Robotnik builds a Death Star-- the Death Egg-- and then is like, “Man, I should totally take over the world,” in Sonic 2. But as it turns out-- if you beat the game-- Sonic doesn’t let that happen.

As it turns out, it wasn't unstoppable.

But, on his way to assured death by falling in Sonic 3, Robotnik’s Death Egg happened to hit Angel Island, a floating island that normally floated over the oceans, covered by clouds to prevent others from noticing its existence. There’s a lot of stuff having to do with legends in the Sonic universe here, but suffice it to say that Knuckles is not stupid, but he IS sheltered. He believed that the Death Egg might have been an egg in a legend, so he (for the most part) pretty much just leaves it be. He’s busy checking the Chaos Emerald Alters when he runs across Robotnik, who REALLY wants to use the Chaos Emeralds to get the Death Egg back into space. To do this, he tricks Knuckles into attacking Sonic, saying something along the lines of “There’s this blue hedgehog and he’s mean and stuff. Also I guess he wants the giant emerald on your floating island and all the other emeralds too, but I totally don’t and in no way am I evil. PS, I came here for the science. PPS, I really like what you’re doing with your quills.” So Knuckles falls for it and tries to stop Sonic from saving the world, but he fails (unless you never beat the game, in which case, he’s waiting for you).  

Sonic and Knuckles deals with the ramifications of the Death Egg hitting the ground, or more specifically, the ramifications of not destroying the Death Egg before. It’s pretty hard to get rid of without someone like Luke Skywalker around.

So anyway, in Sonic and Knuckles, Sonic learns about the Master Emerald, which is what made Angel Island float before Robotnik came along. Also, the Chaos Emeralds, using the power of the Master Emerald, become Super Emeralds. The Super Emeralds are kind of screwed up, so Sonic decides that he will save the day (yet again) and stop Dr. Robotnik’s evil plans, sort of with Knuckles’ help, although there’s no indication that they actually spoke with each other about this, unless you read the comics, which all are loosely based on the games for this particular saga. The Death Egg Saga is completed in Sonic 4, which SEGA is currently butchering as we speak. Anyway, Knuckles Chaotix’ tie in is that after the events of Sonic 3 and Knuckles, a mysterious island shows up and kind of sort of has something to do with Sonic 3.

Behold, we are awesome (and yes, the gray one is missing here)!

A part of the story I skipped in Sonic 3 is that Sonic finds a ring inscribed with mysterious writing, which is what alerts him to the presence of Angel Island, in a really roundabout fashion. Chaotix features those rings as “Chaos Rings,” rings imbued with the power of the Chaos Emeralds. Most of the cast in Chaotix outside of Knuckles go to the new island because... but Knuckles goes because he’s interested in the island that showed up.  Fortunately for Knuckles, but unfortunately for literally everyone else involved, only the new characters are caught by Dr. Robotnik and placed in the Combi Confiner, which freezes them in time. Knuckles first runs into Espio and after saving him, the two of them sally forth towards adventure-- and also they’re going to go defeat Robotnik.

You select a character to use via the Combi Catcher.

There’s a lot you can say about Knuckles, but one of them probably isn’t “he’s immortal.” But in this game, he sort of is. Knuckles Chaotix doesn’t feature lives, and as such, Knuckles and his partner never really die, perse. If you fail super, super hard, then you get sent back to the game lobby, where you save, exit, and switch partners.

Also, you select the stage there.

Other Sonic games are separated into Zones and Acts, but Knuckles Chaotix is separated into Attractions, of which there are five. The reason-- I think-- they’re separated into Attractions is because the Westernized version of the game screwed up the story big time, forgetting that Knuckles guards Angel Island and not Carnival Island. The Western version goes on to make Carnival Island a high-tech amusement park powered by the Chaos Emeralds, which means that the island definitely doesn’t work because Knuckles shouldn’t have the emeralds at this point. Anyway, my point is that a amusement park has attractions, thus the naming convention of “Attractions”. But despite the name, the Attractions are pretty much just Zones, and they’re really weird ones at that. Like I said, there are five Attractions and each Attraction is split into five stages. The time of day changes from stage to stage (depending on the amount of time you spend in the level) but I’ve never had three instances of any particular time of day. There are four different times of day-- Morning, Day, Evening, and Night-- and it only really affects the boss of the stage, if there is one, and the placement of the enemies in the stage, as well as the number of enemies in the stage (somewhat, this probably also has to do with placement). The boss always occurs at the last stage, though.

Marina Madness in the Morning!

The Special Stage occurs at the end of each level, and, for the most part, these special stages are like the sphere special stages in Sonic 3 and Knuckles. They’re fun because they’re in 3D! Of course, this means you can fall off of things and eventually die. So in that sense, not fun. But I like them! The object is to get a Chaos Ring.

On top of special stages, there are bonus stages, which occur when you have 20 rings. It’s pretty cool, but I almost never reach it-- I always have way too many rings by the end of the level-- but it reminds me of a part of Sonic CD that connects this game and Sonic CD in yet another way ( most of the dev team that worked on Sonic CD worked on this, too).

The ring mechanic, which is what makes this game the oddity that it is, is the main focus of just about anyone who talks about the game, mostly because it’s SUPER weird, as far as Sonic games go. You can use the ring, like I said, like a slingshot. Also, it’s used to push down buttons-- one character must stand still while the other pushes the button-- retrieve rings, toss your partner or yourself to new platforms, and so on. But, probably the weirdest thing is the Ring Recall, as I like to call it. The Ring Recall allows you to call your partner when he/it is far away (there are no girls in this game). It is possible to lose your partner, at which time, this move becomes necessary. When you lose your partner and you have no rings, that’s grounds for being sent back to the main room. But, you can call your partner without having rings. When you do this, the ring counter starts showing negative numbers. You can have up to 99 negative rings before the game penalizes you.

Man, these are a lot of words that still don’t really tell you much about the game... well, to be honest, Knuckles Chaotix is just a game you have to play to get. I mean, I can tell you all sorts of things about Knuckles Chaotix, but you won’t really understand it until you play the game-- seriously. Ah, well, I guess we can talk about Metal Sonic. He’s pretty cool and this is the game that followed the release of Sonic and Knuckles and we haven’t seen Metal Sonic in ages so... yeah, let’s talk about him. But from here on out, serious spoilers, you guys.

I assume that Dr. Robotnik (read: the producers) might have actually expected Sonic to be in this game and thus, did not make a new metal creature, like Metal Knuckles or something. But he only exists in Sonic R, which came out after this game. As such, the final boss is totally not Metal Knuckles or Mecha Knuckles (introduced in Sonic Advance and then discarded). It’s Metal Sonic, being badass, you know, because he can. Anyway, it would be SO BORING if it was just regular Metal Sonic, am I right? So SEGA pulled Emperor Metallix from the British Sonic the Comic series and renamed him. Well, he can’t be so bad, I mean Metal Sonic was menacing, but in the same way that an angry puppy is menacing. So Emperor Metalltix must be--

OH SWEET JESUS, HE'S HUGE.

Okay, okay. He’s huge, but he still looks like good ol’ Metal. He’s just red, with some shoulder pads. Plus, they’ll probably tone down the size for the game and--

OH GOD, WHAT ARE YOU

And he is every bit as huge as you think he is. In fact, in this picture, his body and legs are connected but that’s not how it is in the game. He’s actually bigger. Also, I guess this:

YOU CAN'T EVEN SEE HIS WHOLE BODY.

“Question,” you say, shaking your head at the screen. “How is this even possible. Like, as a boss, I mean.”

Oh, as a boss? He blows as a boss. What did you expect, he’s giant and unwieldy.

Metal Sonic Kai mostly just flies around looking super dumb, which is a huge letdown in more ways than one. I mean, teeny-weeny-super-cute Metal Sonic raced Sonic to his death (or Sonic’s death, if you never finished that boss battle) but this guy is like, “Eh, I could kill you guys, but I’m not in the mood. Maybe if you stick a cotton swab on the end of a broomstick and use it to pick my nose?” I’m not going to ruin the final battle for you, but I will tell you this: don’t pick Vector. Seriously, there’s one part where literally any other character does all of nothing and you still will win the game, but for Vector you actually have to push a button. Sad.

We can also talk a bit about the music and the graphics, but there’s really no reason to. You can probably tell from the screenshots that this game looks amazing. Also, SEGA normally writes phenomenal music for the Sonic series, culminating in the soundtrack for Sonic 3 that featured Michael Jackson. I don’t even know how they managed that, he was one of the biggest stars at around that time, wasn’t he? Now, Knuckles Chaotix pales in comparison to the original quartet, but the music is still good. It’s not as catchy as, say Chrome Gadget was, but it’s got it’s own charm to it and all of the music fits the feel of the game. That being said, this game feels like a grand adventure, which might be why it was so hard for me to explain it. It’s a huge, huge game filled with plenty of color, tons of stunning visuals, and a pretty fun game mechanic. All in all, Kunckles Chaotix is a funny little game that came and went, but it definitely deserves a look!