Who is a better rival to Sonic?

Sucks that he's never won. Ever.

Gaming Misfit wrote:Metal however, is a determined foe out after Sonic, hellbent on beating him. Plus he's just awesome, and the original.

Metal is a villain, really. The distinction between the two is generally that the villains have different goals from the heroes, whereas the rivals often share goals and sometimes even have largely similar methods. However, there's some sort of emotional friction between any given rivals, usually from vastly different personalities. Compare:

This first one is the typical rival who has good reason to work with someone, but very little to explicitly get along with them. (Knuckles to Sonic, perhaps.) "I hate your guts and want you to die, but we're not working against each other. Just don't annoy me." (One plot arc later) "Aw hell, you're nice enough. [optional intimate gesture ranging from mildly friendly to extremely romantic depending on gender, gender preferences, and circumstance here]"

As opposed to this one, the classy villain who shares a common interest with a hero and happens to hold him/her in high regard. (Eggman to Sonic, perhaps.) "Well, it seems we have a good reason to work together. Nice to have such a chance, really. I've always liked you." (One plot arc later) "It was fun while it lasted. Maybe we'll be able to do this more often. But if not, obviously we'll have to fight again at some point. [optional handshake or similar gesture here]"

And finally, the crazy villain who, for some reason, be it pride or having motives so vastly different that they would never coincide or whatever, will never outright work alongside the hero. (Metal to the original true blue, perhaps.) "I hate you. I will never like you. I will never work with you. If you don't destroy me first, I will destroy you. That's all there is to it." (One plot arc later) "[optional intense pain sounds throughout] Why... why do you always win?"

The thing about Shadow is that, yeah he's dark, and yeah he's a crappy character, but he doesn't even apply as a rival any more. He's at best a friend working with Sonic and whoever his party might include, and at worst working independently and/or indifferently to Sonic, probably for GUN or some other, even more plot-tangential entity.

Eggman is an outright friend with Sonic unless something causes their actions to counteract each other, which, given that he's the villain, they normally do purely for plot's sake. There were even scenes where Sonic and Co. were casually talking to Eggman, like at the ends of both Adventures and Heroes. And yes, given the circumstances the replacement enemy had made in all three, it was rather casual. And when it was all taken care of, it was even more casual and friendly, like Eggman's talk with Tails at the end of SA2, and even the camera angling on him in his hovercraft at the end of SA1, implying "You know, Sonic. There's nothing that needs to be said."

Metal is a villain like Eggman, only he's the psycho sort whose motives center around destroying or at least proving superiority to his "copy." Near as I can tell, if he were to kill Sonic, he wouldn't start going around and saving the world in his stead. He might kill Eggman on principle of being a slave-driver in his mind and prevent a large portion of the problems, but if not he may very well be happy being the best and shut down forever. Then Mobius/Earth would probably have to rely on Shadow, and Chaos help us all then.

All that said, Knuckles is pretty much the only possible choice left for an actual rival, and anyone else is actually pretty much a stand-in for Knuckles when he doesn't have much of a reason to be around or fill such a role. They also usually disappear after a few games. Yes, they've ruined his character, but at the heart of his intended characterization, he's Sonic's only true rival.

As much as I like Shadow, Metal Sonic is supposed to match Sonic in speed and... well everything, so he make the better rival.

Why am I the only one who ever makes a distinction between rivals and villains? If you're going to give the title of greatest rival to Metal, who's not at all a rival, but very clearly a villain, just go a step up and give it to Robotnik. Think about it:

He made Metal and armies of robots and such that give Sonic a hard time in varying levels on varying occasions, was able to somehow catch Metal and remove his AI after Heroes, and could probably very easily turn Metal into scrap if he decided to,

at least three of these robots became sapient, which even Tails couldn't do once with an IQ allegedly rivaling Eggman's, and Eggman did it completely by accident to boot,

he would've almost surely killed Sonic back in SA2 if he'd been that extra bit more cautious and removed the fake chaos emerald from the pod,

he's probably come closer than anyone else on various occasions and even more if you include messes he made but didn't actually control,

he caused a mess that technically killed Shadow, who was presented to be equal to Sonic, until fanboys cried and Sega just implied "Oh, he survived" and even had Eggman say it at the end of Shadow's game, and then Shadow was clearly shown to be by far the strongest character without his power-inhibiting bracelets in '06, making it a quite feasible leap of logic that Sonic has survived only because he's the perpetual star, and, canonically, by sheer dumb luck,

he's genuinely the oldest character in the series, having conceptual elements being around before Sonic himself from when they were trying to cast a star character, (That's right; Eggman may have been the star of the show in a universe not too different from this one.)

and so on, and so on. The problem with this, though, is that Eggman is not a rival. He's a villain. The two are mutually exclusive. Metal is also a villain and therefore not a rival. If Sega screws up his characterization horribly and has him work toward a similar goal as Sonic but still hate him, then he might be able to pass as a rival. However, there's still the fact that pretty much every rival has been treated as a "stand-in Knuckles" in the past, and Metal would likely be no different in such a case. All of Sonic's temporary rivals have been hot-headed, and fooled by Eggman and/or other circumstances, just like Knuckles was in 3&K. The difference between Knuckles and the others, though, is that whereas the others were temporary and either flung out of the plot indefinitely or re-characterized to not be rivals, Knuckles has stayed the same at his core. Sega has disrupted his characterization in this aspect considerably, but there is still anger to be seen between him and Sonic. The other rivals were either hidden away in "not appearing in this game" land or started to like or at least be largely neutral toward Sonic, yet Knuckles has been a consistent rival since his appearance, and while he's certainly not characterized very well as of late, Sega has done better with him than most anyone else save for other innermost core characters, which don't apply, including Shadow, who hasn't been a rival since SA2 save for one poorly thought-out and mindless battle in Heroes and one in Generations, where it was clearly a past iteration of Shadow.

A rival is not a separate form of an enemy from a villain, it's the same, only under a certain classification of it. Like a category of a villain. What MAKES Metal Sonic a rival can come in several forms. First and foremost his entire purpose is to RIVAL (key word) and defeat Sonic.

Secondly, his entire design is based purely off of a robotic imitation of Sonic's own body. Appearance might not mean everything (not even much, in some cases) but it counts when making two characters and allowing them to be identical.

Something else to note is how you described Knux to be unchanged over the years with only some hiccups on his portrayal. If anything, at this point, Knuckles is another cheerleader shaking pom-poms for Sonic. Sure the two bicker and try to out-do each other on occasion, but if anything it's a friendly rivalry, and even that is close to being reduced to nothing (see Sonic Generations, in which Knuckles is a mere damsel-in-distress).

Shadow's potential as a rival for Sonic is still there, the two have a n obvious respect for each other, but want to be the top-dog still. There's a flare of "Hey, good job, but next time I'm taking your ass down".

I feel like Jet deserves some credit too though. He's an underrated rival simply because he's only seen in the Riders games. Even if that's where he needs to stay, Jet shines there as a good rival. He's somewhat similar to Shadow, but there's less "I'm better" and more "I'm going to beat you this time, and show you who's boss" emotion to it. Mainly because Sonic has entered HIS territory and challenged him.

@Zez, well, that sort of thing is bound to happen in a series like Sonic, being as cartoony and silly as it is, it would be out of place for the hero to lose to his evil-counterpart. Not necessarily too dark, but just not the appropriate side for it.

Villains are not rivals and rivals are not villains. The confusion likely comes from the fact that both are potentially antagonists. All villains and rivals are antagonists, but not all antagonists are villains and rivals, and no villains are rivals and no rivals are villains. Save for Jet (who I forgot about) and Knuckles, everyone you might think would be a potential rival is either actually a villain or re-characterized so that considering them a rival would now be wrong purely on semantic grounds. While Jet could be an alternative because of opinion, (I am by no means here for a "Mine's better! No mine is!" shouting match so I'm perfectly fine with that.) every character save for him and Knuckles simply are not rivals and therefore cannot be a "better rival" without breaking the logicks and definition behind the trope of "rival."

I'm so confused now.

Metal. Sonic and Metal had the best battle in Sonic history, at least I think so.

Metal Sonic's pretty much the only good rival these days. Knuckles isn't even considered a rival anymore and instead is more of Sonic's cheerleader. And Shadow's only purpose now is just being there. :/

BlazePrower9205 wrote:Metal Sonic's pretty much the only good rival these days. Knuckles isn't even considered a rival anymore and instead is more of Sonic's cheerleader. And Shadow's only purpose now is just being there. :/

Yeah I agree. Knuckles was awesome for a while but now he's messed up. As for shadow, like you said he just... exists

Well Knuckles isn't really messed up anymore, he's just...well, there now. He didn't do much in Generations except influence Sonic's future looks. :P

The Freedom Fighter wrote:Well Knuckles isn't really messed up anymore, he's just...well, there now. He didn't do much in Generations except influence Sonic's future looks. :P

Yeah that's what I meant by "messed up"

Generations wrote:Metal. Sonic and Metal had the best battle in Sonic history, at least I think so.

I think so too.Knuckles is more of a friend/follower,and Shadow,does he even do anything anymore?He is in Sonic and the Black Knights,but other than that he's just there for no reason.Metal Sonic is a epic rival,he almost beat Sonic.I had Sonic Heroes and I saw Metal Sonic in there,but I didn't get to fight him because the DS came out and the Akin came out and the GameCube is in a box somewhere.

DS came out,auto correct mistake!

I mean Wii...

I think scourge is the best rival to sonic. Although shadow is a very close second.

PaytonBree wrote:I think scourge is the best rival to sonic. Although shadow is a very close second.

Didn't Shadow start turning good over the years?

Kinda but not really . He just fights for what he thinks is right.

True...

Very (:

Knuckles4eva wrote:

PaytonBree wrote:I think scourge is the best rival to sonic. Although shadow is a very close second.

Didn't Shadow start turning good over the years?

Rivals can be good guys. Knuckles is the biggest example, as even in Sonic 3 he was a good guy.

Shadow isn't good, I think he just fights for whatever benefits himself most.

Knuckles is dumbass , but he is one of my favs 8)

Shadow, I don't like him. He is good to be just anti-hero, but not villain to Sonic.

Metal Sonic is best of those guys to be Sonic's enemy.

He's not that dumb.

The Freedom Fighter wrote:He's not that dumb.

Especially not in S3&K, where he pulls all those traps.