I loved the Sonic Adventure games, as well as the Genesis games. I'm quite surprised no one has specifically mentioned the Sonic Advance series, which is on par with the classic games, in my opinion. When they can get the console games back to his Adventure-era glory, then he will be on an upward curve again. I think they can do it, as long as they don't try these gimmicks, like in Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog. They can easily do it with some effort, and maybe with the firing of the guy who had the idea for giving Shadow a gun and putting him in vehicles. Vehicles are not what Sonic is about. And neither is treasure-hunting. Don't get me wrong, new types of gameplay are nice, but what they should do is something similar to Tails' parts in the original Sonic Adventure. Speed-based, but dealing with the characters' particular abilities.

Then we can keep him from cremation. Which I hope NEVER happens.

And maybe a new voice actor for Sonic. 4Kids... shaming American audiences since 1970.

In all honesty, there is no weakest or "worst" character. The roster is pretty well-balanced. Even characters like King Dedede and Captain Olimar are very powerful in the right hands. If they're hard to use, it generally means they're really deadly when the person behind the controller figures out a viable strategy. Certain characters excel at defense, like King Dedede and Ike, while other characters are light and can dish out alot of damage but have no good KO moves, such as Meta Knight and Sonic. Other characters are good projectile users, like R.O.B. and Samus, and there's some that are really quick at stringing together combos, such as Fox and Sheik.

The play style varies greatly for each character. You don't charge into a mob with King Dedede, or you'll get flinch-locked. You don't steal kills with Sonic, since it's likely that they won't be knocked out, and in trying to do so, you'll be knocked out by another player. There are individual strategies, but there are general categories that they can be grouped in.

In essence, no character is weak. They just need to be mastered.

Furthermore....

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"Tiers are for queers!" (Disclaimer: I mean no offense to homosexuals, it simply rhymes.)