Actually I don't think that'd really matter much. The only time a confusion would possibly come up would be Classic Mode, but you can tell whether the "Metal Sonic" you're up against is the robot or Sonic with the Metal Box anyway.
And then the lulz commence when your opponent is "Metal Metal Sonic".
Oh, I'm aware of the joke. Made it myself. But for the sake of not confusing players who aren't the best at thinking/have little common sense, I'd say use Mecha Sonic's design, as a composite of their abilities. He'd make sense as a semi-clone of Sonic, due to being able to go Super.
The fact I think Metal Sonic in Classic Mode should use the proper Metal Sonic skin(ala Sonic Adventure 1) is entirely unrelated. >.>
So much wrong with this, I don't even know where to begin.
So I'm not even going to bother. It'd just be a huge waste of my time.
I'm not going to necessarily defend him, but this feels dismissive and really unneeded. Just don't reply instead next time. You don't need to get in the last word, really. Don't worry about it. Clearly nobody agrees with his assertions, and if you have a way to prove him wrong, reply. Otherwise, you already won using your facts and logic. You never need to snipe at a user.
And yes, I agree he's wrong.
I doubt that. That three I mentioned are much more recognizable and iconic. I can't believe that when the classics are the most well known, remembered and well regarded Sonic games. I mean, maybe you're right, when you reduce the demographic to a small portion of Sonic fans.
Unfortunately for you, we take all fans into account, and the actual official polls say Shadow is way more popular. At one point, you need to let your bias at the door and accept that your beloved characters aren't as popular as you think they are.
Tails, Knuckles and Dr. Eggman are the original characters in the series, in Tails and Eggman's case they've played pretty important parts in nearly every single Sonic game, they are easily the most iconic characters to come out of Sonic and they're much better to represent the franchise than some rando who's barely in any games, and barely anything well received at that. Shadow just doesn't make any sense considering what options we have. The classics trump everything else, this Shadow meme has gotta die.
Besides the fact it's not a meme(his game created memes, of course), the classics do not inherently trump everything else. That's nothing more than your personal opinion, which is fine to have. Everybody has a right to those. You do not get to however declare only your opinion counts in any way, shape, or form, including implying everybody else is wrong. We call that trolling.
Shadow is no random either. He was a very popular character that debuted in a very popular game, Sonic Adventure 2. He got his own game solely due to this popularity(and I do agree his game did not actually help people like him, outside of the memes it created. But the thing is, they're still like him because it's Shadow doing it, so that is key to remember. He made it work). Heroes didn't do well for him besides actually setting up the stage for his own game giving us the information of how Shadow survived space. Now, it's understandable that some didn't like what he became after Adventure 2. And that's alright. Everybody has their own opinion on it. I honestly loved him other than Heroes where he was impossible to take remotely seriously. Even though Shadow's game had a lot of cheese, it still had an amazing set of ending cutscenes(the final ending) and really did a lot for the character. It finally let him let go of the past and move on, where we got the even better version of him from 06. Unfortunately, they stopped using him outside of mostly cameos since then, which is sad, since they really had a great character. Note, he did appear in Sonic Chronicles too, but that's entirely non-canon.
Ironically, if I recall correctly, Shadow the Hedgehog gained mostly negative reception, despite being pretty good (it has its flaws, but it's still playable) for my tastes.
Anyway, I feel that Tails should come before Shadow, since he has been Sonic's buddy since Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
Yeah, and I can't blame people for the negativity. It took things way too far and dark. The gameplay was mostly fine, but the few glitches and Shadow going too fast to control, along with the Super Shadow segment being less that spectacular(but to be fair, 3D Super Mode has not been all that great overall among games. Albeit, I only got through Adventure 1, 2, and Shadow far enough for it, so I can't say how good Super Mode is in Heroes and other 3D games).
I do like the idea of Tails, but only if they don't make him a semi-clone at all. He has tons of games to go from, and not just his Plane Mech. However, if they do go that route, I really hope it has a skin based upon his version in Sonic X, since that was a really good design.
Shadow, I feel, already has something Tails doesn't have, immense popularity, which does help, and it didn't take long for him to separate himself severely from Sonic either. I know Tails only took maybe about 3 games at best(I don't know when Tails' Adventure came out, before or after Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles). Shadow took literally one game, since Sonic Battle came after Adventure 2 release-wise for games he's playable in. It was odd that Battle actually mentioned stuff from Heroes, but it was obvious they intended that. This is part of why I don't think seniority is a good argument for who to pick. It should really be based upon fan demand at this point, since that's generally what got Bayonetta in. Especially for a secondary Sonic character. Of course, it's safe to say Sakurai will use any particular criteria, but we definitely know he finds Shadow very important to the series, and took fan demand into account already, which is the main reason he's an AT.