I've only watched Season 1 and I thought it was quite serviceable all things considered.
The settings are quite interesting for what they are, I was a particularly big fan of New Yolk City as I've a sucker for grim-dark Sonic settings ever since I first read Archie a while back and the show managed to find a really nice sweet-spot between the gloominess and dread of Robotropolis and the comedicness of something like Eggmanland, I loved every minute New Yolk got in the show as it just ticked all of my boxes for what I wanted from a post-Archie grim-dark Sonic setting, I just loved the effort that went into designing the place as everything was given equal attention, from the underpasses to the buildings themselves and that's exactly what I've yearned for in this franchise for years as I loved re-watching the shows, and having something new to oogle at and observe with every re-watch is an absolute treat.
New Yolk feels lived in due to the aforementioned detail but this is where I can neatly segway to my first complaint.
The show just did not give itself enough room to stretch in the settings it provided, outside of New Yolk, every single part of the Shatter-verse was given just enough screen-time as to where I felt introduced, but not enough to really know the place well enough and the people who resided within, I loved the Boscage Maze and the No Place but I felt as if I had no reason to love them outside of the fact they were in a Sonic show after I finished up Season 1, as I didn't know anything about them at all outside of "this verse is feral" "this verse is pirates" and I fucking hate that, I really want to know more about the hows and whys of everything within the verses outside of a simple glossary and I just do not get that and because of this I just do not care for any given verses versions of the main-cast, outside of those introduced in New Yolk as (once again) it was given much more time to breath and much more time to explore compared its equally interesting counter-parts.
The animation is absolutely amazing all things considered, I genuinely cannot complain as for the Netflix TV budget it was made on, it's fucking brilliant albeit certain parts of the show resembled Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, but I mean that in a good-way geg.
It surpasses what Sonic Boom and Sonic X was serving animation wise by a long shot, in both general and action scenes.
Every moment was full of background details and nothing felt static in the show because of that, there's always something moving, an expression being made etc etc etc.
I especially loved the staircase fight scene in Episode 3 as it’s fluid, cartoony, and incredibly well put together as it shows the characters personalities not to dissimilar to how they were shown in Adventure with the Character-songs.
Each character’s unique fighting style and movement were all made differently in order to reflect the characters themselves, Rusty Rose moves in a stilted mechanical manner, more mechanical then Bunnie Rabbot but less stilted then the Eggman Robots she's fighting which reflects her as a character perfectly as she's not "robotized" like some SatAM counter-parts but she also has some of "Amy Rose" still inside her as she still has an ounce of life in how she expresses and moves, Sonic constantly shows off with action poses and big stupid dorky expressions, which once again reflects how fucking dorky he is in this show, while Nine uses his robotic tails to navigate the ceiling and flank from above, reminiscent of his gameplay in Sonic '06 with the Ring Bombs which also shows how he's still Tails under the cocky edgelordiness, which is all but confirmed during the fight as he stops for a moment to smile after Sonic gives him a high-five, before he once again slips back into being his previous self, it's all really neat stuff.
There's hundreds of similar examples throughout the show, especially with the characters in the Boscage Maze but I just think that fight scene in particular shows it best.
I really like a lot of the new characters though, even if I didn't get the chance to care about the majority of them or their struggles, I still really enjoying watching how they interacted with Sonic and by-extension each-other (even if Sonic's a humongous retard in this show).
All the new characters have such cool designs, and as a Tailsfag I felt comically spoiled, while other characters only got simple costume changes he stood out as he was always given the most interesting changes in both personality and design (Mangey and Nine in particular really stood out to me, in contrast to his normal self in the show), making his variations so much more exciting to see then the likes of "Forest Amy" "Pirate Rouge" and the useless and outright annoying variations of Big.
The new Eggmen were in-offensive, I liked the weeb-guy but he really bothred me as his entire existence implies that there was a Japan in that verse which wouldn't fit in with the lore given to us through the flash-backs and small snippets sprinkled throughout the New Yolk focused episodes, disregarding that for a moment, the rest of the Eggmen were alright I suppose as they didn't stick out too much to me to the point where I logged an opinion of them individually in my mind.
I really liked Nine, but I've heard that he was a whiny faggot in Season 3 so I'll hold my tongue on the compliments, but to make things short and simple, I primary enjoyed his take on Tails' story and how fucking dark it is for no-reason like for God sakes, the nigga was beaten up for years by two literal-who bullies and in-response made himself 7 extra-mechanical Tails alongside a myriad of gadgets, it's genuinely amazing, and the only time I've seen a take on Tails like this before was in the likes of "Sonic Epoch" and "Where was my Hero" which were both fan-made while this is a true officialy endorsed SEGA thing and it makes me so fucking happy it's genuinely hard to convey in words.
I could ooze about how much I like his personality, design and how he's finally a variation of Tails given the time of day to actually be serious and assertive instead of his modern post-Adventure incarnation, but it's all very very hard to put it into paragraphs reflective of all of my thoughts that goes beyond a simple glossary.
The story over-all was servicable enough but I never felt myself on the edge of my seat as whenever any form of suspense was built, it was immediately dissipated with a retarded fucking quip from Primenic, SatAMnic saying the likes of "It's Juice and Jam time!" and made sense as it was all broken up with a meriyad of genuine stakes and danger that actually had me on the edge of my seat, as everything was always on the line, there was always a new Robotnik invention, a new ploy to finally take down that blue rodent and every single time this occured, he used his quips and way-past cool attitude as a genuine stratagey to wind up Robotnik and catch him off guard, while also using them to show his fellow Freedom Fighters that it's possible to be more relaxed and confident despite the grim times ahead, and he even cries in an Episode as he can't keep himself together after losing his Uncle once again but even after that, he pulls himself back together and uses that as another motivation to fight harder by vowing to save his Uncle as the screen cut to black, but in Prime? The quips are just there to make Sonic "cool" and that's it, no-depth, no nothing and it's really grating to someone like me who loves reading between the lines with everything I read and watch, and sadly, that lack of depth in Sonic also extends to rest of the cast who didn't reside within New Yolk.
Overall, Season 1 of Prime excels in some areas but fails miserably in others.
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