Sonic Prime’s reception precedes it. It’s a common laughing stock of the Sonic fanbase, being compared unfavorably to other shows whether or not they are related to Sonic. I elected to rewatch the show with a friend (who was viewing it for the first time) and neither of us liked it very much. I can’t speak for him, but I will speak for myself and maybe a few other people.
Sonic Prime’s concept alone is a risky gamble. The story sees Sonic accidentally shatter reality, turning his original dimension into a ghost of its former self and creating three new dimensions. This is a risky choice to make because the original cast only gets a few minutes of screentime-- save for Sonic and Shadow. You would want to watch this show for the characters you know and love. You can’t play a TV show. This means Sonic Prime is banking on its new roster to carry the show by creating interesting and / or fun dynamics for the viewer to watch, and the show itself isn’t a good starting point for newcomers because their first real interactions with these characters will be alternative versions of themselves. Spoiler alert-- but the decision to bank on its newcomers backfired.
Moving Fast, Thinking Stupidly Slow
Sonic’s characterization in Sonic Prime is notorious. And not for no good reason. I’d be lying if I said Sonic didn’t have likable or fun moments in this show but he misses more often than he hits. His arc during the show’s run is about learning to appreciate his friends and the idea of him doing it through meeting alternate versions of themselves is great but it struggles because his faults make him unlikable at certain points. There’s a scene in the show where the characters are reminiscing on memories and he calls them ‘too sentimental’ before stuffing his face with chili dogs.
What doesn’t help is that he’s at his worst during the first season. He’s comically slow to catch onto the fact that these are alternate universe versions of his friends and outright stupid most of the time. Sonic also struggles a lot during the beginning which is fun up to a certain point, and then seeing him scream and get decked in the face really starts to get annoying. He’s at his best during the second season, but he becomes a new kind of irritating by the third season as he constantly mopes to Nine about being friends.
The first Shatterspace Sonic explores and easily the one that’s the most focused on. New Yoke City is another rendition of an Eggman-centric world. A dystopian city with Eggman propaganda littered across it and new robots known as Eggforcers patrolling the city to make sure its denizens follow the rule. Beneath the city is a Resistance led by alternative versions of Knuckles and Rouge to take down the Chaos Council, a group of five Eggmen separated by age gaps. The Eggforcers are good Eggman units. They look similar enough to the doctor and their name is a fun pun.
Unfortunately there’s not a lot else that’s good with this dimension. New Yoke City feels very underutilized despite the fact it's the most prominent Shatterspace. While we see that the citizens are sad that they’re being oppressed, we don’t… actually see them being oppressed. The most they do is stand around on automatic sidewalks looking sad until they have the chance to fight back without retaliation. This is especially bad when the backstory behind the most important character in this show (who we’ll talk about at the end) is that they were harassed and bullied daily because the denizens of New Yoke City are that cruel. And they don’t refer to the Chaos Council like this.
Speaking of, the Chaos Council are bad villains. They’re comedic villains who struggle to be threatening or worse, funny. Though they have a few hit interactions or lines throughout the show’s run, they miss far more often than they hit and they just come across as lame. A majority of them are built on stereotypes. There’s baby Eggman who’s a loud and annoying baby, teenager Eggman who’s an emo gamer, philosophical Eggman who’s… philosophical and old man Eggman who’s an old man. If you really wanna know their names they’re Dr. Babbles, Dr. Don’t, Dr. Deep and Dr. Done It respectively but I couldn’t care less. Mr. Dr. Eggman is the closest one to the original Eggman but he’s a watered down imitation of the good doctor. Nowhere near as bombastic or fun as the Eggman we know and love. This dimension’s variants of Rouge and Knuckles are palatable enough.
Rebel Rouge is purely a confident leader, lacking any of the sass or greed that makes the original Rouge a great character. Her lines and personality are as bland as peas. Renegade Knuckles is only slightly better. He’s the closest we have to the original Knuckles, though lacking the fire that’s crucial to the echidna’s character. He’s cautious and a little cynical. He’s given a decent amount of time and has some pretty solid scenes every season or so though. The resistance also has a palm tree in the middle of their hidden base that they’re fighting for that symbolizes their hopes and dreams, but it’s hard to care because these characters aren’t interesting or fun. You’ve probably noticed a trend as I went through the last three characters. They’re weaker, inferior and overall mediocre versions of the characters we know and love. This is because none of their characters and only a few interactions sparked more than an ‘okay’ from me, as they spend most of their time dumping exposition or fighting pointless battles. And when I say pointless, I mean ‘fighting battles that lack any underlying themes that make them interesting from a writing perspective’.
There are three other characters who are a part of this universe, but I can’t talk about two of them because they deserve their own sections. The third one though is one of the two highlights of the Shatterspace. Chaos Sonic. The complete and utter anti-thesis of Metal Sonic. I know Chaos Sonic is a semi-controversial character thanks to his personality and a lot of people would have loved to see Metal Sonic, I think Chaos Sonic is what Sonic Prime needed more. Chaos Sonic is a loud-mouthed, arrogant arse whose sole purpose is to insult Sonic every chance he can. He’s so annoying he’s actually charismatic and is fun. He’s having a blast beating Sonic’s face into the concrete instead of wasting five minutes dumping exposition on us. Chaos Sonic is relegated to a single episode, but I think that was probably for the best.
The complete opposite of New Yoke City, the Boscage Maze is a Green Hill Zone that’s currently overgrown. Separated into two halves, the upper half is composed of dead treetops with no leaves or berries while the latter is a slowly decaying forest where plants are completely shrouded in shadow and never get any sunlight or water. It’s the most character heavy Shatterspace of the three with all five of the Boscage Maze members receiving equal screentime and having about equal importance (with one exception).
In theory this should be the best Shatterspace but it’s sadly the opposite. The slow death of the forest is only brought up by the end and never properly explored. Prim Rouge, Gnarly Knuckles, Hangry Cat and Mangey Tails make up the ‘Scavengers’, a group of people struggling to survive. They’re forced to eat bark from trees and berries are a luxury. Prim Rouge is pretty close to regular Rouge with how self-serving and manipulative she is, but again lacks the finer details that really made her fun. Gnarly Knuckles is a largely unfunny, hyper paranoid character that just comes across as moronic more than anything else. Hangry Cat is at least pretty funny with the few lines he does get so he’s automatically the best one. Mangey Tails is far and away one of my least favorite characters in the show. He’s feral enough to the point that he’s treated like an animal and they tried far too hard to make him cute and funny and it just doesn’t work because there’s nothing to latch onto.
The problem that these characters face isn’t explored enough for me to care about them or their conflict and it honestly comes across as comedic more than anything, so I don’t know whether to feel bad or laugh. I do neither. This world is also hurt by the complete and utter lack of NPCs, somehow being more empty than the underexplored New Yoke City. The main character variants are the only characters around.
Boscage Maze’s premise falls apart because it fails to properly utilize its concept, fails to fill it up with life and what life it does have in it fails to endear.
Honestly the first few episodes involving this zone were the best part of the series and I’m not joking. You’d think it’d be the worst because it’s the least interesting Shatterspace with characters that are just pirates and they have the least amount of personality, basically just being pirates. But there’s one reason it isn’t. No Place has low stakes. The Chaos Council’s forces don’t arrive until the end of the story and the only other threat are a bunch of pirate NPCs that are easily dispatched. Sonic’s finally caught onto the fact that the people around him aren’t the same as the ones before so he doesn’t need to waste three minutes running away from them. He also doesn’t take as many losses in this dimension, which is a breath of fresh air after how barely competent he’s proven himself in the other Shatterspaces and instead he can just focus on being himself. That’s honestly something the entire world has going for it. Every character is allowed to breathe and, dammit, have fun.
Knuckles the Dread was an incredibly fun character too. He was lax and friendly, but also cowardly. I say ‘was’ because he undergoes a character arc in the second episode. A negative character arc. He becomes obsessed with the blue shard and becomes incredibly greedy and selfish, eventually turning around by the end of the season (though honestly that bit’s pretty mediocre, and I’ll explain why later). Even the exposition isn’t bad because we’ve been endeared to these versions of the characters before they sit down to tell us a tale. They earned it. The pirate renditions of Tails, Rouge and Big don’t serve any real purpose aside from being background characters but I don’t mind that much because there’s enough good here to outbalance this weakness and they help contribute to the overall upbeat atmosphere.
The most consistently praised element from Sonic Prime, Shadow was a breath of fresh air. While he might not have been too special in hindsight, that is only hindsight. This was during a time when Shadow’s character was still flawed and portrayed as overly arrogant and unflexible. Shadow’s appearance in this show is a little more than what you would want out of him. His rivalry and frustrations with Sonic aren’t out of place considering how incompetent this version of the blue blur is. He’s cold, but to the point and fair. There are moments when Sonic shows regret or decides to lock-in and instead of reprimanding him further, Shadow just treats him normally or directs his attention to where it should be. He’s able to compromise with Sonic for the greater good and it is really good. Even his dynamic with the nerfed Sonic is really fun, and is ultimately where most people will draw their enjoyment from Sonic on-screen. It just sucks he wasn’t able to travel into Shatterspaces because I think his inclusion could have made the whole show a lot better. He’s just good.
It’s not really possible to talk about the Amys with their respective groups because their character and their arcs are intertwined with one another. They’re the only character variants who are so closely tied together. And it’s for the worse.
Rusty Rose showed the most promise of the three Roses. She starts out as cold, aloof and merciless as they come. Sonic’s pleads fall on deaf ears as she opens up her chest to reveal she’s being powered by a Flicky-- a pink Flicky no less. The very thing that powers the Badniks in Sonic’s original world. She continues to perform well when she’s allowed to be the main antagonist in the last two episodes of the first season with her dry and cruel personality. It gets interesting when she sees Black Rose and hesitates, no longer desiring to finish them off and instead claims that it would be a waste of time to blow up a sinking ship. But by the time the second season rolls around-- it’s over. The Chaos Council ditches her, she swears vengeance and she becomes a good guy. It happens that quickly. While
Thorn Rose in theory should be good. She elected to protect the forest when her friends started taking more and never giving back. That meant hurting her friends, who would later go on to call her a monster. But it falters. A: She’s an eco-terrorist. That’s her entire personality. B: It’s never expanded upon. The extent of her relationship with them is ‘I hate them and they hate me’ and that is it. She’s at her best in the first season and even then it’s still low. She’s the same eco-terrorist from start to end, only now there’s no interesting conflict between her and her friends. It really doesn’t help matters that she came hot off the heels of Rusty Rose, another antagonistic Amy who was far more interesting both in season one and even out of it despite how rushed her character progression was.
Black Rose is the first time Amy plays a smaller role in a Shatterspace (initially). She’s the most similar to Amy of the three Roses with her optimistic nature. She follows the same beat Rusty Rose does character progression wise, seemingly interesting with how she’s seen her alternate counterpart but falls off with how fast the pacing was. Giving Rusty Rose some credit though, they have a talk where she admits she’s never actually had friends before. Black Rose says that she feels the same way just because she’s working under Knuckles the Dread. And it’s just ridiculous. Knuckles the Dread did become an arse but she had Catfish, Sails and Batten alongside her who appear more than friendly to one another. She takes a backseat and basically just attaches Rusty Rose to her hip up to the ending of the series. After Knuckles the Dread finishes up his character arc by saving her from a robot and realizing treasure isn’t everything, he says she’s now the captain and follows her orders.
The original Amy got off the best, but still isn’t great. She’s the character who highlights the fact that Sonic disregards his friends the most. She’s the one who gets annoyed that Sonic speeds off without them, that he doesn’t listen and that he doesn’t value their friendship. It’s good stuff. But that’s all in the first season. The second season sees Sonic visit a Shatterspace called Ghost Hill, a grayed out Green Hill Zone with ‘ghosts’ of Sonic’s friends that are stuck on loop saying one line. Each of these lines says something about their character or their relationship to Sonic. Tails will always be there for Sonic, Knuckles is simple but loyal and competent and Rouge gets things done despite how different her tactics are. Amy’s line is, and I quote; “The forest is the most beautiful place on earth!” What am I supposed to take away from this? That Amy loves nature? How shallow. What sucks too is that in the final episode, Sonic says; “No one protects the forest like you, sweet Amy!” and it just reinforces this stupid ‘Amy is nature girl’ idea that Sonic Prime tries to force.
Sonic Prime’s Amy can be summarized as shallow. The appeal to all three roses isn’t anything surrounding their personality or satisfying character progression. It’s seeing the same character copy pasted three times and standing next to one another.
Sonic Prime is at its best when it’s telling the story between Sonic and Nine. Nine is the first dimensional counterpart Sonic meets and the New Yoke City counterpart of Tails. Nine is the best character in the show. He’s one of the few characters that’s truly based off of a concept instead of a personality trait. Nine is the result of a Tails that grew up without Sonic. He never had a role model to look up to or a big brother to help him out. Nine was harassed for several years. He isolated himself from society and became cynical and jaded. It wasn’t until Sonic saved Nine from being hit by a train that he opened himself up… to Sonic and Sonic alone. His relationship with Sonic becomes very reminiscent of that he had with Tails, only his remarks are sharper and a little bit more hostile.
When he gets his hands on a piece of the Paradox Prism, he has no interest in helping out New Yoke City and instead wants to remake a new world for him and Sonic in a place called The Grim. When Sonic declines, he does at least help Sonic get back to New Yoke before he gets kidnapped by the Chaos Council. He works behind the scenes to help Sonic out until the end where they need to get all of the Paradox Prism parts back to Ghost Hill because the blueprint for the original macguffin is there. Shadow continually warns Sonic about his new friends, particularly Nine. He tells Sonic that they aren’t real and they aren’t his original friends. Shadow was half right. Sonic didn’t heed his warnings and continued to view Nine as if he were Tails. Nine calls him out for this, calling into question what would happen to himself if everything went back to normal and how Sonic failed to consider what Nine truly wanted. This culminates in Nine cutting his friendship with Sonic, taking the Paradox Prism and becoming the main antagonist of the third season.
His shadow looms over the season as he puts every Shatterverse in danger, both by harnessing their prisms and launching attacks on their Shatterspaces. Nine is after Sonic because he has the remaining energy he needs to complete The Grim. He crafts robots known as Alpha Grim units and has them fight every major character in Sonic Prime-- which admittedly takes far too long and none of these units are interesting or fun characters, but it is the first time we’ve gotten robot variants of Rouge, Flickies and even Big. The final fight is between him and Sonic and it’s (obviously) well choreographed and just satisfying overall. Nine turns over a new leaf and the fight is over, with him helping put the Shatterspace-- and Sonic’s world more importantly back together.
Nine manages to both provide an interesting introspection into Tails and create a new dynamic from the original fox-- something that nearly, if not every other newcomer on this show failed to do.
Sonic Prime is an unfortunate creation. It had great renditions of the main cast right there in front of them, but chose not to use them. It’s not a good fit for newcomers because they get so little exposure to the main cast members and it’s not a good fit for older fans because there’s so little to chew on. Sonic Prime spends its time setting up worlds and characters and doing nothing with them because it’s so occupied racing to the next action scene over exploring their thoughts and feelings. As such, there’s hardly anything to talk about with most of its cast or its story.
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