No Right Answer: Worst Videogame Sidekick Ever

[Winnosh]

One of the things great about the Sonic comics and characters are that Archie Comics actually lets the characters age and change over the years.

I love the characters interacting with their families and when Bunny, and Antione got married. Still waiting on them to have some kids.

Tails is what 16 now in the series?

 

[RTR]

I was half expecting Chris to pop in at any moment to throw his hat into the ring.

 

[Scrustle]

Wasn't Shadow created by Gerald? (and besides that, doesn't Shadow's self-titled game imply that Shadow's design was from the Sonic Vs. Chaos prophecy?, as implied by the existence of the artificial Chaos enemies).

Gerald made Sonic first, then he made Shadow after he was arrested and sent to prison because he wanted revenge. I think. Either way, Sonic was definitely his creation too.

I don't really know much about Shadow's origin from his game. I never played it much. From what I've hear maybe that evil alien thing lent some of his evil juice to Gerald to make Shadow. The game has so many endings though, I have no idea if any of it is even canon.

 

[rayen020]

Okay is this gonna just dump on Sonic again? or is there going to be an actual debate?

(watches Video)

Okay so Dan used it to dump on tails (I'm biased, tails has been my favorite Sonic character since forever) but at least they came to the right decision. While I'll admit that tail's entire purpose was just to fill in a Second character space for the early days of multiplayer, he is at least useful and had a character expansion even in those first games. Who's piloting that plane in Sonic 3?

Slippy is again just filling a space, N64 needed four characters in everything for multiplayer purposes. However his character development goes from incompetent pilot toad to incompetent pilot toad who is a mechanic? on a ship with an auto-repair system? was i just misunderstanding that part of the game? When you finished the mission in starfox 64 the robot helper guy didn't fix everything, it was Slippy?

SEE? i know things about tails, they took time to somewhat characterize him. Slippy my entire paragraph on him is nothing but questions!

So yeah slippy in worse.

And tails can just spins his tails back and forth really fast pushing air either under him, to fly, or behind him to run at a speed comparable to sonic. Ting is he can only do it for a little while. Sonic doesn't get tired, Tails does, that is why he's the sidekick not the hero.

 

[Chadling]

Slippy.... is so bad, so incompetent, so Scrappy-like that his idiocy actually manages to lock you into the game's false ending if you don't save his ass during one of the boss fights. During the boss fight in Sector X, he decides that it would be a really good idea for him to rush ahead of the rest of the group to take a few potshots at the boss.

Even if you've never played the game before, you can already tell how well this is going to end.

 

[Therumancer]

We need a rematch pitting Slippy against Navi from Zelda....

Perhaps entitled "Which video game tag along character did you want to kill most".

I mean sure, we all wanted Slippy to die when he was around, but at least he was only around once in a while usually, begging you to shoot someone off his tail. With Navi it was constant "Over here! Over here! Over here!" and to be honest even today I'm not even sure what Navi was, if it had a gender, or really much else about the character. All I know is that Navi constantly made me contemplate homicide... where I could occasionally forget Slippy existed.

 

[Souplex]

There are ways that a sidekick can be bad:
1. Useless to gameplay. (Truly terrible sidekicks hinder gameplay)
2. Useless to the story. (Truly terrible sidekicks make the story worse with their presence.)
3. Annoying.
Alyx Vance is all of these.
1. She actively hinders gameplay. If she runs ahead and gets herself killed while you are breaking boxes or whatever, it's game over.
2. The fact that she tries to have conversations with you demonstrates how not to do the whole "No cutscenes, character does not have a voice" thing. Whenever she talks at you, "Gordon, hamfisted exposition, Gordon!" it destroys immersion, and proves that cutscenes are a good thing.
3. So very annoying. Her voice actress is terrible, her writing is terrible, and she just makes the whole game worse with her presence.
Alyx Vance is the worst sidekick in Gaming history.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I think we should discount A.I programming, if we don't then virtually every npc tagging along can be considered for the crown of Worst Sidekick. The Worst should be judged purely on the merits of the character itself.

 

[Endocrom]

Two points in Slippy's favor
-Without him you can't tell how much health the bosses have
(assuming you haven't memorized the game after dozens of times beating it)
-Slippy isn't the only one that gets into trouble, Peppy dies, you loose those wonderful words of wisdom on how to do barrel rolls. Falco dies, uh... What did falco put on the table?

 

[Hutzpah Chicken]

I remember in Star Fox 64, I would shoot Slippy down as soon as I could. I also didn't realize he was dude until I played Star Fox Assault. Then I would shoot him in the face.

Tails is the man! The most I dislike about him is that I needed to have a second player for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 just for the special stages, as Miles always ran into the mines that I had just avoided. That and how they gave him a girly voice. Either way, Tails is awesome.

 

[gamegod25]

As many have pointed out, Dan is no authority on the animal kingdom as echidnas are real animals. And Knuckles not only is a cool and capable character on his own but also had a perfectly valid reason to exist. He was the guardian of the floating island and the master emerald.

Back on topic: Tails is certainly not the best sidekick but in no way is he the worst. If you just want to talk Soinic characters then how about Chip from Sonic Unleashed? If Tails can get on your nerves then even a minute of Chip is enough to make a person fellatio a gunbarrel.

To be fair, isn't Chip savable from scrappydom by virtue of being able to form a stone mech using temples from across the planet? (haven't played all the way through Sonic Unleashed, just from what I heard).

Well I don't think that is until like the very end, and really I wouldn't be able to make it past the intro let alone the whole game having to put up with the annoying runt.

 

[mjc0961]

Huh? Slippy VS Tails for worst video game sidekick in a series called "No Right Answer"? Why? There is a right answer, and that answer is Slippy. Slippy only exists to yell "FOX, GET THIS GUY OFF ME!" and fail at life, only becoming a useful character in Star Fox Command when the player control his every move, but also at the expense of making him no different than any other character in the game. He's just another pilot the player controls, no longer a unique character.

Tails didn't do much in Sonic 2 other than f*** up your special stages, but in Sonic 3 he can pick you up and fly you around. That one single useful act is more than Slippy has ever offered, which automatically makes him a better sidekick than Slippy. And yes, you do need player interaction for flying as well, but flying is something Sonic cannot do, so even despite the player intervention, Tails is still a unique character rather than just another Sonic. And that's just one game, too.

Two points in Slippy's favor
-Without him you can't tell how much health the bosses have
(assuming you haven't memorized the game after dozens of times beating it)
-Slippy isn't the only one that gets into trouble, Peppy dies, you loose those wonderful words of wisdom on how to do barrel rolls. Falco dies, uh... What did falco put on the table?

Yeah, too bad the boss health bars in the game are about as useless as how to do barrel rolls and Falco. Nearly every boss in the game goes down quick to max lasers. I think there's times I've had the boss nearly dead by the time Slippy even gets that health bar on screen, that's how useless they are.

I think we are looking at it from different perspectives.

I just know the games and I watched Sonic underground when I was a kid, I don't know about any of the comics or cartoons or any of that shit. I have played quite a few Sonic games and in them Tails hasn't saved the world at all he just helps Sonic.

I understand you have taken the time out to read up on Sonic's backstory, but I am just apporaching Tails from a video game perspective, where compared to Sonic he is rather crap.

You clearly don't know the games then. Tails does everything Sonic can but can also fly and swim. Yeah, Tails is real crap alright.

The only times Tails has actually been crap is when the game he's in is also crap.

Tails was crap in Sonic Adventure 2, because Sonic Adventure 2 was a crap game that turned 75% of the game into a mix of shooting levels and treasure hunting levels, and the few actual running levels were mostly about holding a button to go faster through linear grind rail sections where you aren't really even playing.

Tails was crap in Sonic '06 because it's f***ing Sonic '06 and every single thing about that game was crap.

But try to tell me that Tails was crap in Sonic 3 or Sonic Adventure and I'm going to laugh you right the hell out of here. (Well, not really, but I am going to laugh at you a lot)

 

[bl4ckh4wk64]

Was I the only one that wanted them to talk about different side kicks rather than just the two? I mean, don't just do a compare and contrast of the two because there's an obvious winner that slippy is the worst of the pair. Bring in a whole bunch of side kicks and talk about their benefits and problems. Have a discussion rather than just talking at each other. Then again, I don't really watch No Right Answer, so I'm not sure if this is their norm.

 

[matsy]

Best sidekick: Companion Cube vs Dogmeat!

 

[Infernai]

"Don't write a sidekick unless you need one"

I can think of one reason why a sidekick could be necessary... But it's a bad reason.

...The main character spends the entire game not talking to anyone because nobody is on their side, and thus their character is marginalized to silent protagonist.

Of course, like I said, bad reason. If you're at a point where you've got a silent protagonist, maybe that's what you need to go with.

Either that or some internal monologue.

I think Drakengard handled the silent protagonist aspect well by just making the main character an utter bloodthirsty psychopath.