It’s time to talk about the most recent Sonic show that just ended. Prime definitely had a pretty good run although the episode count isn’t as impressive as the overall length because of the way the show kept getting split up. Still, because of that you certainly can’t say that it was over in the blink of an eye. It had some good action and it’s always fun to see the Sonic characters running around even if the show never got too ambitious or tried to be anything more than pretty good.

The show starts off quickly with Sonic and friends trying to stop Eggman’s latest attack. He’s trying to do something with a crystal shard and so Sonic quickly attacks him but ends up blowing the shard up which sends him into a whole different reality. There are now different worlds that have alternate versions of Amy, Tails, Rouge, Big, and Knuckles. Sonic has to unite the gems to reform the crystal and bring his world back but to do hat he will have to defeat the Chaos Council, a group of different Eggmen that are bent on ruling the universe. Can Sonic stop them and will these alternate characters want to prevent the fusion since it could have dangerous repercussions on their own home worlds?

So right away I will say that this is pretty much a classic Saturday Morning cartoon title. You shouldn’t expect things to get too tense/dangerous even with the end of the world stakes at place. There will be a lot of one liners and comedic moments to keep things light but Sonic’s always been good with those. So the tone itself fits, but the execution isn’t always up to par with the high standard of the games’. Sonic is often not as witty as he thinks he is and so some of the jokes tend to fall flat. It’s why the show is definitely at its best when there is action happening.

We have one of our longest Sonic vs Shadow fights in the series during the second part of the show and it’s handled really well. Fans of Sonic may not appreciate that he plays second fiddle to Shadow all of the time but I’m pretty cool with Shadow being the strongest. (Remember that Sonic 2006 showed that he has been holding back the whole time and could have easily beaten Sonic) They should be fairly close but Shadow having the slight edge isn’t bad. In fact you could argue that a slight edge in a fight like this would be enough to have one character dominate.

Shadow is consistently shown to be more experienced, smarter, stronger, and more combat ready in general. In any scene with the two of them running around Sonic will often end up falling flat on his face while Shadow lands with grace and poise. As a result the show does have to write him out quite often since he would be dominating the whole time. Even then he shines off screen like when we see how he actually managed to take down a whole army of enemies. That was great. Shadow is absolutely the highlight of the series and any scene with him is awesome.

I will say that I also enjoy Sonic a lot. Yeah he definitely acts a lot younger than usual which is why my head canon is that this takes place back in the old days despite how that would not fit with continuity. However, he’s still a hero through and through. It’s always fun to see him use his speed and dominate the enemies when the chips are down. He’s a good lead and he still clears over 90% of the cast in the show.

It’s a bit of a shame that we don’t get to see his friends much since the alternate universe fighters take the main stage here. Most of them are rather boring. There’s the pirate crew but they don’t have much of a role beyond their version of Knuckles. That Knuckles is okay but it’s hard to take him seriously as a threat since you figure Sonic can beat him at any point. At least he did have a full personality the whole time so I’ll give him that.

Then in the Jungle role the only one with a real full role was Amy. She had a pretty good action scene with Sonic as they avoided the trees/vines while battling. Beyond that though, there isn’t really much to her. Her bird also ends up failing at the last possible moment for no reason other than to buy time which was odd. The Amys in general go more of a role than the other characters though. Typically each world had one primary character: Pirates was Knuckles, Rebellion was Tails, Jungle was Amy, however then you had the robotic Amy from the pirates world also get a big role so that broke tradition.

Robotic Amy was fun, she didn’t get quite as much to do later but it was a fun concept. Having her finally break away from the programming and do her own thing was cool although even then I think they could have done a little more with it. Imagine her being a full third faction just trying to take over the world or something. I think that could have been a lot of fun.

After that is Nine who has a super big role. His role is second only to Sonic in the show as he is a consistent presence in each part. The guy is a genius like the real Tails but has to live with the fact that he isn’t the Tails that Sonic always hung out with. The whole thing’s pretty tragic for him and I think the show does a good job of playing him up as more of an anti hero than straight up villain. I mean some of his dialogue in the last part is classic bad guy but the motivations make sense.

Basically the way I saw it at first is that depending on how the merging goes through, Tails’ and his timeline may no longer exist. The way the show actually ends it doesn’t seem like that’s the case but it’s a very reasonable concern. So his goals and Sonic’s are directly opposed to each other and Yu-Gi-Oh Arc V had a very similar issue. It’s a very interesting one that I enjoy because there isn’t really a right answer. Once a new world has been created, you don’t really have any authority to suddenly destroy it to bring your own back right? However if you don’t, then you are sort of murdering billions of people by inaction. Sonic has to bring his world back at any cost and Nine has to protect his.

Again, this is Sonic Prime so it’s not going to go with the hard philosophical questions like that. The final part makes this more of a black and white struggle in regards to who the good guys are and the bad guys but it was a fun way to end off the second part. Nine also works really well as a villain and while I will always take speed over smarts, he absolutely does give Sonic a good fight.

I’ll talk about the power levels in a minute but lets wrap up the characters. Metal Sonic shows up here which was pretty cool although it’s a very different take on the character to be sure. He likes to throw out puns and joke around just like Sonic. It’s going for the more literal copy of Sonic right down to the personality rather than being cold and calculating like he usually is. I get what they were going for here but I don’t think it really works. It does make him memorable though so I’ll give him that. Later on we get more copies that are truly mindless and they don’t end up being all that interesting.

Then we have the Chaos Council. While I’m not as harsh on them as some others, they are very weak villains. I didn’t personally like any of them and they just made me miss Eggman. The baby is super annoying since he can’t even talk and the old man is the other extreme where he is super old and that’s the only joke that the series will keep on reusing for him. You have the kid who loves playing video games which is barely even a personality and then the only adult who I could only describe as a watered down Eggman. So not a very intimidating group and the problem is that the show really wants you to respect them. They actually give Sonic a hard time at different points which doesn’t make any sense. We really could have used more villains.

This brings me to the power levels issue. It’s common for anything including speedsters so it’s not unique to Sonic Prime but it’s still annoying as always. Sonic should be mopping the floor with just about every villain in the series. I don’t mind him having trouble with Shadow, Metal Sonic, or other speedsters. But the Chaos Council, Pirate Knuckles, and Nine? Those fights should be over in the blink of an eye. It never makes sense whenever Sonic is hit by any of these guys. If you want to do that, then have him get exhausted first like when Nine forced him to keep saving people. That would make sense but a fresh Sonic can’t be getting hit all of the time.

It’s part of why I looked forward to seeing Shadow every time because he looked the way I expected Sonic to look. He actually used his speed well and was usually winning his battles while Sonic jobbed the whole time. Yeah Sonic would eventually win with the help of his friends but that was about it. Also the friends should not stand any chance against the Grim Sonics running around. It just comes across as really cheesy the whole time.

As mentioned, the animation is pretty smooth though and so that works with the fights. At times you don’t really feel the weight behind the blows though. I always turn to the DCAU or Dragon Ball Z for this. You need animation effects for the blows or a good sound effect. Part of the problem with Prime is someone will get punched or slammed but the effect is so weak that it feels lifeless. As for the soundtrack, it’s more on the generic side. Don’t expect anything memorable.

I will say to prepare yourself for a very dragged out Part 3. While I still enjoyed it quite a lot with the fighting and climax, it is fair to say that they really start to overplay their hand. There are a ton of moments that feel straight up like recycled footage and I think that’s actually the cast. We reuse the same story beats over and over to fight the same opponents in the same setting. I knew something was suspicious when we entered the climax almost immediately in the final part and that’s because we would end up going on a loop.

Part of the problem is that this makes the power level issues more obvious. On one hand you have Sonic and Shadow teaming up to beat the Grim Sonic and then later on you have him getting punched around by Knuckles and Amy. Yeah the Alphas are stronger than the clones but even the Alphas were losing to the friends. Doesn’t make a lot of sense. I think maybe part of the problem is the CG and the show had to keep reusing backgrounds and character models. It would explain why throughout the series we kept going to the same places and fighting the same enemies. It’s yet another reason why hand drawn will always be superior.

By the end of the series you deeply miss Eggman and Sonic’s actual friends. I would really like to see a series focus more on them without any big gimmicks because if you think about it that never really happens. In Sonic X we were busy with the humans and then going off to space, in Sonic Boom they’re all trapped on an island so the rest of the characters aren’t there, etc. I think there are plenty of great stories you could tell with the main cast and no gimmicks.

So repetition is the show’s biggest weakness. It should have mixed things up a bit more and even if I give the writers the excuse that the animation limited them, you can absolutely write around that. So Sonic Prime is a very safe show and it’s a fun one but these are the kinds of basic issues that keep it from moving forward. If the show ever does return or we get a brand new one, I’d like to see them mix it up a bit. Also they shouldn’t be afraid to make Sonic more of a true leader. Yeah he’s a free spirit but he’s a fairly mature one in most forms of media. He has fun with the jokes but always at a good time and he takes care of the situation with ease which is part of why it works.

I should give the show some credit for Sonic’s new super form though. It wasn’t really necessary since he has a ton of existing ones as it is, but I still enjoyed seeing it. It was a good way to end off one of the parts and at least salvage the climax from the usual giant villain. In general I also really liked a lot of the designs for the original characters like the Grim Bots and pretty much all of the mechs. So the character designers did really know what they were doing.

Overall, Sonic Prime was pretty fun. I had a good time with the episodes. The animation is good enough as it looks like cutscenes right out of the video games. It may not be as top tier as it could have been with a more traditional style but it did the job. In a lot of ways that describes the show all around. It’s pretty good even if it’s not groundbreaking. I don’t think the show itself will have a ton of replay value but I could see myself Youtubing some of the fights every now and again. Particularly Sonic vs Shadow which is the highlight of the series.

Overall 7/10