"This completes my plan to take over the world. Now begins the glorious era of the Eggman Empire!"
DOCTOR IVO "EGGMAN" ROBOTNIK
First appearance: Sonic The Hedgehog (1991)
Latest appearance: Team Sonic Racing (2019)
In the early landscape of home console gaming, the main antagonist would generally hide in the final world or castle or dungeon until you fought them. Until then, it was always just fakes or underlings.
Not Eggman, though.
In Sonic The Hedgehog on Sega Genesis, one of the many revolutionary things done is having the main antagonist fight you at the end of every world, AKA zone. Himself. No tricks or anything like that. Dr. Eggman feels so much hate towards Sonic that he will not allow any one of his badniks to off the hedgehog. Rivals to the bitter end, in a literal sense, they are. Complete moral and thematic opposites, too. You have Sonic-the free spirited hedgehog who loves and protects nature, and values friendship very highly. Then you have Eggman: cold hearted, unforgiving, grudging, mechanical, doesn't have friends (that are organic at least), human, hates nature and abuses it for his gain, and wishes to steamroll anyone in his path to get what he wants. Which is usually to kill Sonic (which he never does), or to expand the Eggman Empire to the far corners of the world (which he did like once over the course of six months, and once Sonic got out of captivity then he took it back in like a day).
Eggman, a genius with an IQ of 300, is known for hundreds, if not thousands, of mechanical miracles (if you could call them that). From his trademark vehicle, the Eggmobile to his space station, the Death Egg, to the many aircrafts he's made such as the Egg Carrier 1&2, the Egg Fleet, the Egg Hawk and Albatross, and the Egg Dragoon. Robots, too, which he commands to do harm to Sonic and everyone he cares for-Motobugs, Buzz Bombers, Grounders, Egg Pawns, E-102 Gamma, E-123 Omega, Heavy and Bomb, G-merl (the last five of which all rebelled against him), and how could we forget the many robotic copies of Sonic and his friends? Metal Sonic, Silver Sonic, Silver Sonic 2, Mecha Sonic, Tails Doll, Metal Knuckles, the Shadow Androids-and the mechanical genius doesn't stop there. Dr. Eggman also creates tons of add-ons for his Eggmobile such as the famous ball-and-chain, and he even uses it to pilot his many mechs like the aforementioned Egg Dragoon.
But he's no one-note, heartless, emotionless killing machine who makes machines. Eggman has been shown to help out Sonic and his friends on numerous occasions. When Perfect Chaos tried to destroy all of Station Square, Eggman used his Egg Carrier 2 to attempt to defeat the beast (Sonic Adventure 1). When G-emrl rebelled against Eggman and tried to take over the world using the power of the Master Emerald, Eggman mounted the Eggmobile and volunteered to be used as a projectile attack by Super Sonic to stop the Gizoid from succeeding in his plans (Advance 3). Most recently, when the Zeti were all trying to kill Sonic, Tails and Eggman, as well as suck the life out of their world with one of the doctor's machines, he teamed up with the furry duo to beat the ever living snot out of the monsters he had once tamed. Eggman is also said to be an avid feminist-which may have something to do with his late cousin, Maria Robotnik, who I'll cover in more detail when we get to Shadow (don't worry, I will submit him eventually if Eggman loses). And in the comics, there was a whole side story where, after the events of Forces, he had a terrible case of amnesia and became the talented Mr. Tinker, who lived in a friendly village, repairing and building toys for children, fixing table legs, and all around just being a nice guy. And even after regaining his memory, when questioned by Sonic why he went back to his evil ways, Eggman did express some past enjoyment of living a relaxing and humble life-before insisting he will always be vile, no matter what. He just likes to take breaks from the terror every now and then.
Listen, I know that's a lot of analyzing for a character, but it is essential to understanding Eggman as a character. But if you really need a TL;DR, Dr Eggman is a really smart mechanic who hates all of nature, and especially Sonic, but he'll offer to help save the world every now and then if it's looking grim for him. Don't let that fool you though-Eggman is an antagonist, through and through.
Speaking of which, yeah-Eggman isn't just an antagonist. Apart from Bowser, and maybe Sephiroth, he is THE gaming protagonist. Those two villains I just mentioned-along with other like Ganondorf, Ridley, King K. Rool, King Dedede, Meta Knight, Wolf, Bowser Jr., (maybe) Kazuya, Medusa, DJ Octavio-are all fighters in Super Smash BRos Infinite. I need to stress, this is a VERY impressive cast of villains. But there's just one issue:
Where's Eggman?
Why isn't the most iconic non-Nintendo villain unrepresented by a fighter slot in Super Smash Brothers Infinite?
This, along with many other reasons, is why Dr. Eggman should finally become a Smash Brother with this job. So many that I can't successfully weave them all together in paragraphs. Let's take this in a more bullet-point structure (without actually using bullet points).
Dr Eggman would give the Sonic series another fighter
Sonic The Hedgehog is one of the most beloved video game series ever made, leading to Sonic's inclusion in Super Smash Bros Brawl and every subsequent game. Ever since Sonic's announcement for Brawl, fans began requesting chraacters like Shadow, Tails, Knuckles, Metal Sonic, Amy, there were like seven people who asked for Silver
including me-and of course, seemingly the most requested Sonic character, Eggman. Eggman would probably be the most unique potential Sonic newcomer given his human nature as well as tendency to use machines and robots to his benefits. The Sonic franchise is huge, and after four games of the sole rep being its namesake, I think adding the second most important character in the entire canon would do it much justice.
Dr Eggman is the most important gaming villain to not be featured in Smash
Already went over this above, so I'm not doing it again. But I do feel the need to stress, our villains roster is unfulfilled without Eggman.
The Sonic series could REALLY use another stage
Currently, there are two Sonic stages-Green Hill and Windy Hill. Both fun to play in their own right, but very, VERY similar in terms of art direction. Adding Eggman would let us add another Sonic stage for some diversity in that roster. There are a ton of possible choices. We could add an Eggman centric stage like Eggmanland, Death Egg, Egg Fleet, Egg Carrier, or Tropical Resort. We could also add a non-Eggman-centric stage, like Chemical Plant, Ice Cap, City Escape, Angel Island, Emerald Coast, Crisis City, Press Garden, Studiopolis, and many, MANY others. The cool thing about Green HIll Zone already being a stage is that virtually any Sonic stage can come next, so there's pretty much no clear winner for which might win a submission period..
Moveset potential is CRAZY
...so crazy, in fact, that multiple movesets could be submitted and Eggman would play completely differently with each one. You've got the Eggmobile. The Egg Walker. The badniks, collective name of the robots he uses to do his bidding. Egg Dragoon. The many weapons from his iconic classic boss fights. Egg Wyvern. Egg Emperor. Eggman could even perform a melee slap attack in Sonic Adventure 2's Chao Garden! All of this is to say, Eggman has the potential to be a really unique and fun fighter. He could be a midweight trap-based zoner who walks on foot and uses his many badniks for the advantage; he could be a super heavyweight Eggmobile-piloting aeiral based fighter; he could be a super heavyweight Egg Walker-piloting projectile zoner with a few good up-close options; or heck, he could even switch between mechs like Pokemon Trainer switches between Pokemon!
With all that out of the way, onto the FAQ! For such a potentially controversial addition like Eggman, I feel it is much warranted.
Why Eggman? Why not Tails/Knuckles/Amy/Metal Sonic/Shadow/Blaze/Silver/Middle-Aged Man from Sonic 06/etc?
I won't try to downplay the significance of other popular Sonic requests, not a bit. They're all warranted in their own right. My most wanted character for Ultimate was the Ultimate Life Form himself, before his tragic disconfirmation. But Eggman is the second most important Sonic character as well as being one of the most important villains in gaming-I know I sound like a broken record at this point, lol. Eggman has consistently stayed an important character throughout the entirety of the series, even though characters like Tails, Knuckles, Amy, and Shadow have been delegated to minor side roles in the most recent era of the franchise-the 'Modern Era' that is 06 onward. Anyways yeah, as much as I love those characters, I feel Eggman's inclusion would be warranted over those.
But if Eggman wins, I can't submit Arle/Axel/Ristar/Beat/etc!
Again, gotta stress, I love those characters too-and plenty of other Sega characters not listed. But Sonic has been in every game since Brawl, and with dedication like that, a second newcomer is much deserved. Not just that, but with the Sonic movie and its sequel, Origins, and Colors Ultimate, Sonic is very fresh in the mind of the public during Infinite's reveal. There's no better way to capitalize on Sonic's newly regained popularity than adding another fighter from the series into Smash Bros! Plus, I'm sure we'll get a second Sega character somewhere down the line as DLC.
Why a Sonic character, of all the third parties?
For all the reasons mentioned above. Also, I understand that some people may think Sonic is properly represented already with the titular main character-and three years ago, I would have agreed with you. But now that Castlevania and Resident Evil have gotten secondary reps as echoes, and Final Fantasy had a secondary rep in the form of an antagonist who was a completely original character, I highly disagree with the notion that the spiny blue guy is enough. The Sonic series is HUUUGE, and it's got a wealth of characters who could be perfect for Smash.
He would be too similar to Bowser Jr. or DJ Octavio!
Not in the slightest. There's nothing wrong with having the egghead piloting a mech along with two other heavyweights. Eggman has more than enough weapons and robots to call his own to set himself apart from those two. But, if it becomes too large of an issue among the thread, we can simply have him not use the Eggmobile, and instead have him pilot the Egg Walker or Dragoon, or even have him fight on foot.
Doesn't Sonic already have enough content in Infinite?
Nah. There's still a ton of stuff we could add, especially in the musical department, as well as a new stage being pretty much necessary at this point.
What about recolors or alts?
For alts, an obvious one would be based on his appearance in the classic Sonic games, to contrast with the modern one that Infinite would use by default. Recolors could reference characters like Metal Sonic, Eggman Nega, Gerald Robotnik, among others.
I thought you said you would save submitting a Sonic rep for DLC!
Sorry. Couldn't help myself!
FINAL ARGUMENTS FOR MR SCRAMBLED EGGS HIMSELF
1. Sonic is an extremely popular IP which is very deserving of another fighter and has recently grown in relevancy thanks to the movie and 30th anniversary
2. Dr. Eggman would fix the gaping hole in Infinite's impressive yet unfulfilled roster of villains
3. Dr. Eggman is a fan favorite Sonic character and the second most important of the franchise, being around just as long as the little blue ******* himself.
4. Dr. Eggman was one of the most requested fighters during Ultimate's DLC phase
5. He has a vast amount of moveset potential and has the possibility of being our most unique fighter to date.
6. Sonic music
7. Sonic music
8. Sonic music
If you've read this far, thank you very much for your time! Speaking of time...it's time for the Eggman Empire to expand into the realm of Smash. Vote Eggman for Super Smash Bros Infinite today!
