5 Years Later: Looking Back At The Mecha Sally Arc

[bwrosas]

It isn't hard to believe, that it's been five years since the Mecha Sally arc began. And looking back five years later, it's hard to believe all the missed opportunities that they had with his storyarc.

Now I'm not going to sit here and tell you that it didn't start out promising, because it did. I just feel that when they split the teams in two, with one team being Team Fighters which consisted of Sonic, Amy Rose, and Tails. Who ended up being the team that followed the Death Egg Mark II to try and save/restore Sally to normal.

Now the other team, which is called Team Freedom, stayed behind to protect the kingdom. And this team consisted of Cream the rabbit, Rotor, Big the cat, Heavy, Bomb, and on a part time basis, Nicole.
Now what's funny, is that when this split of teams happened, that's when this storyarc went downhill. Because when you look at how these two teams were represented, it seems that team freedom was represented better than team fighters. Because with team fighters, it was the same thing almost every issue, chase the Death Egg, fight a weaponized Mecha Sally, rinse and repeat.
While on the team freedom part of things, they were getting more character development on what they were doing.

Now of course you also had another group of the heroes that were kind of undercover. And that was the secret freedom fighters. Which consisted of sally's brother, two members of the Wolfpack freedom fighters, Silver The Hedgehog, an old school favorite Larry the Lynx, and helping them behind the scenes where Harvey who, Uncle Chuck, and Nicole.
Now the reason this group was formed was to secretly free the kingdom, from Nagus who usurped sally's a brother and gained the favoritism of the kingdom. Who were not aware of Nagus's true intentions. And that's where the secret freedom fighters come in.

Now some of you will question what are the missed opportunities that I alluded to at the beginning. Well let's take a look at them.
First off, when Tails is fighting Sally, she gives him a choice to defeat her or help save a village. Now Tails chooses to save the village, and if one thinks about it, if Sally was truly gone, she would have attacked Tails as soon as he turned his back, but she didn't. Which in my opinion, showed that she still had a little bit of free will left inside of her.
This theory can also be followed up, by the fact that when she is sent to go and kill her brother, that as soon as she enters the hut, he's not there but she can plainly see that he's escaped and she looks out the window with almost a regrettable feel for what Eggman was programming her to do. Because she could have easily gone after him and caught up with him, but she didn't and that shows me that she still had a bit of free will left inside her.
And this is a missed opportunity, that they could have capitalized on with Dr. Eggman wondering why she didn't go after her brother or attack Tails from behind as soon as he's turned around to go help save the village.
This is something from a story aspect that they could have really explored. I mean if you're going to have Dr, Eggman be this is a huge threat that's always one step ahead, then you could have easily made him realize and acknowledge that Sally may still have a bit of free will remaining inside of her, and that he has to find a way to subdue it.

Another missed opportunity, was not really explaining how Sally's unwilling betrayal caused Silver's future to become desolate. All we got was Silver making a deal with Harvey Who to be part of the secret freedom fighters in exchange for helping him find out who the traitor among the original freedom fighters was that caused his future to be in ruins.
I mean they do you give Silver a bit of reasoning for why Sally's betrayal caused his future to be so desolate. I agree, that during the passing of hundreds, if not thousands of years, historical facts can be misinterpreted or even lost in time. Which could validate Silver's explanation to Sonic and company as to why Sally is look at as the traitor that caused his future to be desolate.
But here's the biggest problem I have with this, why didn't Silver stop and question how sally's betrayal could have caused all of the desolation in his future. Because as much as sally's situation was impactful on all the other characters, wouldn't someone like sonic betraying the freedom fighters and the world have a more direct result on the future of the planet. Because honestly, I think it could/would, more so than that sally's unwilling betrayal.
And when you think about it, even silver could have figured that out, but again like I said this was another missed opportunity that they could have capitalized on.

Another missed opportunity, west Tails not confronting Shard or Silver on the fact that he pretty much know that sally's brother is leading a secret undercover team if not a secret undercover operation. I mean you could have him acknowledge that with what they were talking about to him and sonic, that he has an idea that they too are part of this secret mission that the King's a part of.
True, it may have not been that big of a deal, but still it could have filled in several potholes and gaps. And by not doing so, and having his teammates notice that he seems to know something they don't, kind of makes him a bit untrusting.

Another problem I had with this storyarc was the fact, that even though we had a behind the scenes issue that caused several changes in the story and several characters to be removed , I still believe that with subplots like endangered species, you could have kept some elements and scenes in there, even with the unfortunate removal of certain characters. But they didn't do that, and that in my opinion could have helped the story.
But speaking of the endangered species plot, it's during this or towards the end of it, that you come up with a solution that dates all the way back to issue 0 of the original Sonic miniseries as an answer to help Sally be restored.
To me, that shows desperation, and what I mean by desperation, is the fact that you have to dig back into the archives to find a last minute solution, because the original solution was taken out because of the behind the scenes lawsuits. Again, you could have kept the original solution for Sally being restored in the story, even without certain characters involved. But unfortunately they didn't do that.

One thing that a lot of fans know was a huge missed opportunity, was going all out with Sally's situation.
I mean there were/are several fans, that wrote or drew possible situations that could have really helped make this storyarc a lot more intriguing and interesting.
I mean one fan drew her as becoming so corrupted, that she ended up changing into a dragon like creature ala Ultmate Metal Sonic in Sonic Heroes. Now that to me could really help make this story a lot more interesting and intriguing. Because if they would have gone in a direction like that, it would have been an interesting read. Because then you would have the characters confronted with trying to save and restore her, but at the same time realizing that they may have to destroy her if it comes down to it, because the form she's evolve into, maybe unreversible.
It's things like that, that are huge missed opportunities, that they could have capitalized on.

In the end, this storyarc, while it had a lot of potential and promise at the beginning, like I said at the start of this, as soon as they split the team's, that's when it all went downhill.
And let me say this, if you liked this arc, then that's fine, more power to you. But remember, as many of you may have like this arc, there's just a wee bit more that didn't like it.

That's all for now, have a safe and happy holiday and a new year in 2017.