See this "Unique Tails, Echo Shadow" Thing i see pop up every now and then. It makes me Cringe, it's a Sin, Especially if we are talking DLC! Echoes are bonus characters, Characters developed with Extra Time. Cause DLC doesn't have a Deadline like the base game, there is no excuse for Tails to get the whole package while Shadow gets the scraps.
Shadow, The 2nd MOST Popular Sonic Character, getting supported in Smash since Brawl, Modded like Crazy back in brawl (and even in Smash 4), That support. Shadow, with his Chaos Abilities, Abilities that Sonic doesn't use in Smash (Light Speed Dash, Boost, Stomp, Black Tornado), and his Martial Arts, Plus his Guns (even if he only had it in one game). All of that and you want Shadow to use two Spindashes, The Splits, Sonic's forward air, etc, While Tails gets all of his Attacks to fit him and his Tails and his Personality. Damn
ESPECIALLY when we are talking DLC. No Excuse for this. I cannot Support This "Unique Tails, Shadow Echo DLC Pack" that's been a idea of eople i've seen. all it is is something to keep the Shadow Fans Down. You don't want them to rise, You just want to see them fall in the echo chamber. even if we talking post game launch, you still want to see us fall, You don't want the Shadow fans hope of possibly getting a Unique/Semi-clone Shadow to come true, you just want them to settle with scraps i say.
DLC Shadow, Base Tails. DLC Tails, Base Shadow. or Perhaps both DLC Uniques. Have both of them actually represent their abilities correctly, their personalities. Don't Shaft one of them, Let both of shine i say. Just saying.
And no i wouldn't be pleased if it was the other way around and it was Echo Tails, Unique Shadow. i want both of them to shine. if you guys are gonna support this sinful idea come DLC Speculation, then i cannot join something that is so sinful, so unfair. This is unfair, not funfair.Topic
I get it, a character being an echo is a weird area where the character makes it. But loses much of their individuality, and can feel like a hollow victory. There are already a few fans here and there for current echoes that have mixed feelings about their character being an echo.
But in a lot of ways we gotta think realistically. Sonic is
not a first party franchise. While there are many 3rd parties already where if you include echoes like Richter and the possibly inevitable Ken. We have at least 10 in the base game already. We also don't know yet if 3rd parties will get more then one representative that is not an echo yet. As Tails fans we've already discussed that it's definitely possible. But to go as far as say 2 additional semi-clones to one 3rd party franchise? I get we love Sonic, but it's going to be hard to convince the public that we should get 2 full-fledged newcomers. When we bring up an echo Shadow + Unique/Semi-Clone Tails. It's more palatable to the general Smash fanbase where it's more like Sonic gets another two characters where at least one is less effort that doesn't take too much development time from other DLC characters and it makes a whole bunch of Sonic fans happy if there's one for the classic side of things and one for the more younger, Modern Sonic fans.
We're not bringing up Unique/Semi-Clone Tails & Echo Shadow to screw Shadow, far from it. If we wanted to screw Shadow we would be only campaigning for Tails and no one else. The fact that both getting in together might be the key for eachother is important, Tails needs some of the louder and outspoken support that Shadow fans get. Shadow needs something that would help palate his inclusion for those that aren't fond of the newer Sonic games (And/or more familiar with the classic cast) or even those that don't like Sonic at all (Especially in the case of DLC in which those kind of people could simply choose not to buy any of the extra Sonic characters)
We need to consider more then just us Sonic fans when supporting characters for Smash. Try bringing up Shadow and Tails both getting in as their own characters anywhere on a general Smash thread and/or website. And you're going to get jeers at that possibility. Bringing up both where one is an echo will also do the same thing for some places, but at least that would more likely get some to say "Yeah I guess that's a decent possibility. Especially for DLC".
We all love Sonic, but we're just not going to convince anyone that it should get the Kirby in Brawl treatment (That is 2 additional unique characters in one game). It'd be different if Sonic was a Nintendo franchise, but it's not. And thus we need to humble ourselves when it comes to more characters. We do think Sonic's most likely the one franchise who could get another character from it's franchise that's not an echo, but we can only expect for one character to break through to that. 2 from the same exact franchise when you also got to think of say Chun-Li or another Final Fantasy character needs to be put into consideration.
And the thing is after Sakurai's comments about what makes a fighter an echo or not after Isabelle.
Sakurai said:
This is because Isabelle and Villager have fundamentally different body types and personalities, so we couldn’t have made her an Echo. All of her animations are different; not a single one is the same.
It's pretty clear that regarding Tails and Shadow:
Shadow can be an echo, Tails cannot. Shadow shares a body type, and while yes they have different core personalities. Not sure that's quite as big of a deal when Daisy fans would tell you she's alot more spunky and/or athletic then Peach, or Dark Samus fought very differently from Samus in the Prime games. They could easily change some of Sonic's animation to reflect more Shadow's brooding or harsher nature while still keeping him an echo, and there are games Shadow played no different from Sonic at all including his debut and most recently Forces. Tails on the other hand where aside from flight played like Sonic in the classics, definitely does
not share Sonic's body type and would have a signature ability completely ignored or at the very least only used in up+b and/or jumps. Some of Shadow's abilities could still be conceivably be used in an echo if they used a teleport like Mewtwo's and a different Final Smash. Some of us (me included) have thought about before how Tails could work if they had to as an echo what with applying Peach's float and/or adding Kirby's multiple jumps to be Tails' "flight". But after Sakurai's clarification on echoes, we know that isn't going to cut it.
We're thinking it like this. Both can come in together, but only one can actually get their own number. And the other's going to have to share some space with Sonic. And the simple matter that is Tails can't be an echo, while Shadow can is what drives the Tails Semi-Clone + Shadow as a Sonic echo pack as the main road to that happening. We'd love both to be unique if it were possible. But the world does not revolve around us Sonic fans, we're not any more special then the other 3rd party franchises in the game. It's very possible we get an echo Shadow and that's it, or even worse Sonic stays alone once again the entire time. We should consider ourselves very lucky if indeed Sonic gets three characters this game regardless what happens. In a game where are so many requests, and a small number of newcomers cause the focus was on "Everyone is here!", two unique Sonic characters would take away and shock the public and not in a good way. Even if both were still unique in DLC that's time being taken away from many DLC hopefuls. There's more to consider in Smash then just Sonic, we need to remember that. Otherwise you're setting up yourself for personal desires that just won't be feasible.