Amy Rose Discussion

I personally like the idea of her Adventure moves being incorporated. Like the Hammer Spin (not to be confused with the aerial hammer spin, twinspin.) to allow her to gain more momentum, and attack enemies while moving, for the tradeoff of being able to move freely... i'd remove the "dizzyness" aftereffect though.

I'd also like the Hammer Jump that was mentioned above to have Amy's spin frames, and then at the apex of her jump to go back into her fall sprites and allow hammer jump. Of course, more polished than the .lua mods that add the Hammer Jump. I'd think it could only be used when at Amy's full running speed, and wouldn't be too too high and since there's no such thing as Air Friction... you can make big leaps, but that's fine unless there's a balancing concern. -Also, maybe Hammer Jump only working if you press Jump after using it-, just an idea i had.

I like the idea of Twinspinning off of an enemy to increase jump height. Or maybe the idea of an entirely new ability (That aerial hammer spin move where she spins her hammer left to right in midair) to gain more height. That or make you only go higher with twinspinning off of an enemy if you hold the button, as well... sometimes you don't want to go high.

I like the idea of hammering the springs giving more of a boost in momentum as they do now. And when twinspinning off of the spring badnik in THZ1. Also some changes in level design, for more paths for Amy to choose.

I also agree with Amy being really bad on slopes. Unrelated but also there's a softlock that can happen in Frozen Hill Zone, due to the snow pushing her back, and even a full jump cant net her enough speed to get away from the wall. AFAIK this is only ONE section in FHZ.

This probably isn't a well thought idea, but it's food for thought. Amy bouncing off of a wall when twinspinning into one. Possibly a wall-kicking tool.

Also like the idea of deflecting projectiles with hammer, or the hammer having a shielding-box thats the size of its hitbox.

Thats probably all the ideas i have.

EDIT: Amy going into a ball when using her hammer on a sideways spring would be nice, would make hammering a spring useful, would make logical sense as i mean if you propelled forwards with a ton of speed you wouldn't just immediately stop, you'd roll because of how much speed you gained
It'd help with amy having no way of using slopes, i mean if the level designer puts a spring there it helps i guess, mainly just that one part in deep sea 1 would be fixed, maybe that one part in deep sea 2, other places itd help too probs.
 
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Advance Amy may actually be good for this, I kinda just added some other stuff but the main things are:

Hammer a Spring = Amy goes into a ball, allowing her to use a lot more slopes
Hammer Jump (balanced) and doesnt have (much) momentum, so it slows you down, so you have to choose when to use it
and perhaps the Head Slide attack, which allows Amy to use slopes without the need of a spring or cobalt/rumia momentum mods, of course the problematic thing with this is allowing amy into sonic's paths. But the "Big Step" seems like a good idea along with crouch for Custom1... of course, having Custom1 be a required button is also problematic. All of these moves are based on Amy's first *playable* appearance in a 2D Sonic game.

swing with one hand with the hammer, and press a after hitting the ground with the hammer to propell forward like the Hammer Flip, except you know... gives you forward momentum, the hammer jump [crouch and spin] would reduce your momentum so it's not too good but would go high [not too high], have the downward spinning attack, a crouch button to activate it, the big step which is basically a small hop [activated by crouch and jump], hitting a spring on the ground (or anywhere) will put you in ball form (inaccurate to source material, but it allows amy to use slopes at least), the "head slide" attack could be a roll [activated by pressing spin during big step]... kinda allows amy to get into sonic sections but that's no matter
obviously would have the hammer twirl. advance amy had the double hammer attack (amy uses her hammer a 2nd time if you press spin right after using hammer)

Those are some *possible* changes to amy to make her better, then again this MIGHT be better off as it's own character wad because of how ambitious it is, but i think i should at least spread the idea, and i kinda wonder if anyone else agrees with these ideas
 
How does Amy feel in terms of controls?
Like everyone else but manual.
What are your most and least favorite aspects about her playstyle?
I really don't have a strong feeling one way or the other, she's mostly fine, I'd just give her a few extra things, like a peelout or the ability to attack again because mispress double taps make you eat shit. Basically, make her a bit less committed, I don't see any benefit to that.
If there is anything that you felt Amy is "missing", what sort of gameplay changes would you be most interested in seeing?
wait i just answered that oops
 
How does Amy feel in terms of controls?

I like how Amy controls and I tend not to have too much trouble with the left click/right click distinction on the twinspin. In my head, I think of the ground hammer as a replacement for rolling rather than a spindash, so I rarely confuse the two or have issues with shield inputs.

What are your most and least favorite aspects about her playstyle?

I really enjoy the timed hit aspect of the twinspin/ground hammer and it makes those big bounces more satisfying. I'm finding more and more ways to improvise with hammering springs on each playthrough, too.

My biggest grievance with Amy may be unique to me, but I had quite a bit of trouble finding her specific routes on my first playthrough with her. The first time I got to Arid Canyon Zone Act 1, I did this:

MhQJL09.gif


I had some doubt as to whether this was intentional, but given that Amy was the "challenge" character, I thought this might have been the only way. I found very, very few of Amy's routes on my first playthrough, and I'd never even considered taking Amy through some of Knuckles's walls. I had a similar problem with Fang and his routes, too.

If there is anything that you felt Amy is "missing", what sort of gameplay changes would you be most interested in seeing?

I'd like to echo a common sentiment in the thread and say that I'd like her to have her running Hammer Jump from SA1 or the Amy hacks for the Genesis games.

Her spring/spike/breakable wall interactions and higher jump make her a bit impure as a dedicated challenge character, so it would be nice to have a move for her to use that didn't require a contextual obstacle.
 
Playing as Amy Rose for me feels like a challenge mode (hammer instead of spin dash is a huge game changer) with two special abilities that are more fun than they have any right to be: breaking spikes and bouncing higher on springs than anyone else.


Breaking spikes doesn't tend to be that useful gameplay wise, but it's an unbelievable amount of fun to do so and is good for speeding through parts where you need to be careful playing as the main trio and occasional paths unique to her.


Hammering on springs is usually incredibly fun, but there's a few cases where doing so will just send you into a bottomless pit, so you kind of need to know which springs you can and can't hammer. Far more often than not though, it's an absolute joy to jump from a spring twice as high (or however the math works out) as anyone else can and discover new areas. Unfortunately, it can be frustrating if you time the spring bounce wrong, especially when wearing a shield due to the jump and spin buttons. Another problem is that if you jump on a consecutive series of springs without touching the ground, you can only bounce higher than normal on the first one.


Other than these issues, playing as Amy is a lot of fun and balances advantages and setbacks reasonably well. Much like Sonic, she's one of those characters that's difficult to pick up for beginners, but incredibly rewarding to master her moveset.
 
I've been considering what I want to say in this thread because Amy's probably my most love-hate character.

How does Amy feel in terms of controls?

Obviously this question's targeted at the only thing where Amy actually controls differently from any other character -- her hammer inputs. Don't really like that I can use the hammer in the air with jump-spin, because if I didn't already prefer the jump-jump input due to being a developer for a short while, I only see it slowing me down to figure out why I prefer jump-jump because it muddies the waters. I have a similar issue with Whirlwind Shield.

What are your most and least favorite aspects about her playstyle?

It's hard for me to talk about this because she's very "love & hate" for me. I like that she's the character who has the most respect for the level design, but I also don't like that she has to completely give up having any upsides whatsoever to accomplish that. I think that every character should have some sort of "super power", even if it's difficult to activate or situational.

I want to discuss all of her abilities that could have been upsides, and breakdown why I don't think they really qualify as "selling points" to playing as her.

Her ability to breaks spikes... I like it, it's novel to be able to break spikes and I think it's worth the inclusion for that alone. However I can't consider it anything beyond that; at best it's simply a fun novelty, but a pessimist might say it's just another type of breakable wall for the mapper to throw in to arbitrarily break people up. I wouldn't agree with that sentiment, but I also wouldn't really have an argument against it. Maybe there is someone out there who plays Amy solely because they are the only character who can break spikes with little effort, but I can't see it as a real up-side or draw to playing them. While it's fun, it doesn't do enough to really consider it a power or selling point, it's just a bullet point tacked on the end.

I love Amy's spring power in Advance 1, it was her main way to take shortcuts and make her own paths through levels without the designers needing to actually make new content, and gave her a draw. But despite the fact that it should work better in a 3D environment, it feels underutilized here. I think the main issue is that it feels like it's being played too safe. Advance 1 had it really extreme (compare the first spring bounce to the second, skip around for yellow springs if you don't want to take my word on those either), and that really made up for its situational nature. Even a yellow spring had potential for huge skips in that game. SRB2's is far more tame, and probably feels even more tame than intended because of it being 3D.

The end result is that it's in an awkward limbo; you can definitely feel that the spring is stronger, but it's not enough to do anything with, besides a few notable exceptions. For every spring like this one in ACZ1 that lets you skip like 5 seconds of running, there's several that would change how you played an existing area, but it's just shy of reaching a ledge or whatever. Additionally, spring chains cannot be made stronger, since you can't swing the hammer after taking a spring. It feels like a huge limitation on top of an already limited & situational move. I think this ability is so close to being a huge defining trait of Amy's, but it's not quite there. Instead, it's just another tool for designing Amy paths. I don't mean to say that as a bad thing, I think it's fine to have abilities like that, but my point that it won't be seen as a plus either, because it doesn't change how you look at areas that everyone has to play.

My absolute favorite thing about Amy: I think she is the strongest character in terms of extra paths -- she clearly has the most work put in to giving her unique content. I commend this effort, and I cannot deny how much it adds. Despite all of my criticisms, I feel like she's completely worth her own playthrough because of it. If anyone I recommended the game to talks about considering a second playthrough, I always tell them Amy, because it gives them the most new content. However, this is me praising the map design (again); we're talking about the character design. In a map without any of those path splits, she's simply mediocre.

If there is anything that you felt Amy is "missing", what sort of gameplay changes would you be most interested in seeing?

I mainly tackled this in my ramble above, but if it isn't clear; I want her to have some kind of reason to play her in all maps, not just the ones that have Amy paths. But I hope that whatever she gets doesn't undermine her current niche as a harder character who has to respect level design. My ideal Amy is the one I did for my unlockable characters rebalance; she is still unable to do much on her own, but she can exploit enemies for height. Additionally, I would like to see her spring strength buffed, even if it were just a little bit -- an extra 0.05 or 0.10 added to the multiplier. How I personally see Amy is as a "technical" character -- one that is far weaker than everyone on their own, but when combined with tactics & map knowledge can be far more powerful.

For something else, I would say her hammer needs some polish. I really dislike that I can't give shields by using the actual hammer, only the heart particles. I dislike that the heart particles' hitboxes are inconsistent with their sprites, and that they always land just shy of enemies you were trying to hit.

I will end with what I don't want for the character: Hammer Jump. Every attempt I've seen at implementing it has been underwhelming. It's a very noncommittal & basic ability, and doesn't gel with Amy's design. There's no reason not to use it in basically any scenario; if you're traveling on the ground, you might as well Hammer Jump. I think that stomps a bit on Fang's ground too much; Fang is a similar flavor of "bounce everywhere!" gameplay, but bouncing has some trade-offs to it, and you can hold it instead of have to mash a button when you land. If there's only going to be two non-spin characters, they really should play distinct!
 
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I will end with what I don't want for the character: Hammer Jump. Every attempt I've seen at implementing it has been underwhelming. It's a very noncommittal & basic ability, and doesn't gel with Amy's design. There's no reason not to use it in basically any scenario; if you're traveling on the ground, you might as well Hammer Jump. I think that stomps a bit on Fang's ground too much; Fang is a similar flavor of "bounce everywhere!" gameplay, but bouncing has some trade-offs to it, and you can hold it instead of have to mash a button when you land. If there's only going to be two non-spin characters, they really should play distinct!

This seems more like a problem with the implementation of Hammer Jump than the concept itself. From what I've seen of the mods that try to implement it, they aren't implementing a Hammer Jump at all; they're implementing a Hammer Vault. The jump doesn't need to launch Amy forward.

Sonic Advance's Hammer Jump slows her down while in the air, which does plenty to discourage spamming it. The jump could even be implemented the way the Amy in Sonic 3 hack did it, where Amy loses all horizontal momentum when she uses the move.

The idea is to discourage using it for anything more than finding skips and shortcuts. Fang's bounce is the opposite; it starts off painfully slow and picks up speed as Fang chains it, encouraging the player to spend the entire level bouncing around without stopping. The Hammer Jump should be designed for quick bursts of height at the cost of speed.

It's fairly in-tune with the rest of her kit, too. Amy's pretty starved for forward momentum, but she's better at vertical bursts than other characters with her higher standard jump and spring boosts.
 
That's a fair enough assessment! I should've clarified that the Hammer Jump I'm opposed to is the one from Sonic Adventure -- aka, the one everyone probably means when they pitch the idea. :V
 
Actually, since I implemented my version (I still have yet to try everyone else's) using the basic hammering behavior as a base, Amy has end lag if you just use it to gain height and nothing else or do it willy-nilly, it only keeps your momentum if you're in the air longer than the animation itself. Since how high you go is directly tied to your horizontal speed, you could very well slow yourself down dramatically and go nowhere or crash through an enemy into the floor, or you can reach the top of GFZ2 with a well-timed leap and continue on with no lag at all. Adding additional movement restrictions such as a PF_SPINNING-esque mobility cut would make this a very commital move.
 
1. I am not sure but they take while get used to.
2. Amy is by far the hardest Sonic character I have played in the game out of Sonic and Tails, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy.
3. Maybe better powerful hammer to use.

Thoughts on Amy.

If you want to become super angry and start cursing and throwing things in very big intense rage, then play as Amy Rose! Seriously she is insanely hard like it really frustrating how srb2 people seem to love insane hard game play that causes people to rage. Deep Sea Zone was the first level that really decimated the lives I had built up. Castle Eggman Zone was okay until the end on Act 2 with Amy was hard. But no what really drove me to stop this game was Arid Canyon Zone Act 1 where I end up using 3 continues! The part near the end is really hard and I usually not have that many lives left after all the heck going through all the other stuff before that than. I am terrified of Egg Rock as Amy. I would be shocked if anybody beat this game as Amy. I only played as Amy in hopes of getting the emblems that only she can get!
 
1. I am not sure but they take while get used to.
2. Amy is by far the hardest Sonic character I have played in the game out of Sonic and Tails, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy.
3. Maybe better powerful hammer to use.

Thoughts on Amy.

If you want to become super angry and start cursing and throwing things in very big intense rage, then play as Amy Rose! Seriously she is insanely hard like it really frustrating how srb2 people seem to love insane hard game play that causes people to rage. Deep Sea Zone was the first level that really decimated the lives I had built up. Castle Eggman Zone was okay until the end on Act 2 with Amy was hard. But no what really drove me to stop this game was Arid Canyon Zone Act 1 where I end up using 3 continues! The part near the end is really hard and I usually not have that many lives left after all the heck going through all the other stuff before that than. I am terrified of Egg Rock as Amy. I would be shocked if anybody beat this game as Amy. I only played as Amy in hopes of getting the emblems that only she can get!

This probably isn't the place, but this is clearly hyperbole right? Amy isn't THAT bad, you can't say you'd be completely shocked. Like... completely mind-blown? I highly disagree, and do not think Amy is impossible mode, or that she causes cursing or RAGES. At worst she's just Sonic without the thok, which the game is definitely possible to beat without. Unless you really don't know that you can press A in midair to do a midair hammer swing... I just don't understand. I do think Amy could be better, but I think the reason why she's like this is because they don't want Sonic to stand out as the hardest character, so they made Amy's movement harder I suppose....She does have some plusses though imo. I've suggested some Amy changes. SRB2 a rage game?! I mean I probably shouldn't be defending my girl here, but I can't allow you to go THAT far, you can dislike Amy but golly geez.
I just can't agree with you.
 
This probably isn't the place, but this is clearly hyperbole right? Amy isn't THAT bad, you can't say you'd be completely shocked. Like... completely mind-blown? I highly disagree, and do not think Amy is impossible mode, or that she causes cursing or RAGES. At worst she's just Sonic without the thok, which the game is definitely possible to beat without. Unless you really don't know that you can press A in midair to do a midair hammer swing... I just don't understand. I do think Amy could be better, but I think the reason why she's like this is because they don't want Sonic to stand out as the hardest character, so they made Amy's movement harder I suppose....She does have some plusses though imo. I've suggested some Amy changes. SRB2 a rage game?! I mean I probably shouldn't be defending my girl here, but I can't allow you to go THAT far, you can dislike Amy but golly geez.
I just can't agree with you.

As someone who has beaten the game as Amy many times over, I have to agree. I actually genuinely enjoy playing as her more than any of the main trio, and when I'm not playing as a modded in character I'm generally playing as Amy or Metal.

Is Amy "Hard Mode"? Yeah, I would say that. She does not feel like she was intended to be your first playthrough, or even your fourth playthrough. You are expected to know the levels and game mechanics well enough to make the most out of what she has to offer and what she lacks. An Amy playthrough is careful, generally less focused on speed and more focused on strategy. If someone is trying to speedrun the game their first time playing as her, it's not going to end well probably.

Honestly I would say she's probably the hardest character in the game, the requirement to unlock her therefore should be a bit harder to do, or at the very least take longer. One idea might be to make her the reward for beating the game as each of the other 5 playable characters. If that's a little too harsh, then making her specifically unlocked when you beat the game as Sonic (as opposed to anyone else) could also be fair, and would provide additional incentive to playing as Sonic specifically when the other two options you start out with are so appealing.
 
This probably isn't the place, but this is clearly hyperbole right? Amy isn't THAT bad, you can't say you'd be completely shocked. Like... completely mind-blown? I highly disagree, and do not think Amy is impossible mode, or that she causes cursing or RAGES. At worst she's just Sonic without the thok, which the game is definitely possible to beat without. Unless you really don't know that you can press A in midair to do a midair hammer swing... I just don't understand. I do think Amy could be better, but I think the reason why she's like this is because they don't want Sonic to stand out as the hardest character, so they made Amy's movement harder I suppose....She does have some plusses though imo. I've suggested some Amy changes. SRB2 a rage game?! I mean I probably shouldn't be defending my girl here, but I can't allow you to go THAT far, you can dislike Amy but golly geez.
I just can't agree with you.

I should mention that when I finished writing that I just finished playing as Amy when I got game over for the 3rd time in a row on Arid Canyon Zone Act 1 and was probably still very upset. However even with the time cool down I still find Amy very hard. Again if I am struggling to beat Arid Canyon Zone with her then Egg Rock Zone must be nightmare to beat.
 
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@TripleT: Would you say that Amy or Sonic (alone) is harder to play as?

I was thinking of that but I have not played as Sonic by himself in 2.2 and only did Sonic and Tails playthrough. I have played as Sonic by himself in 2.1 which Egg Rock Zone was brutally hard. I am unable to answer that since have not played as Sonic for 2.2 version.
 
How does Amy feel in terms of controls?
I think she's pretty smooth considering the general controls of the game. Her having a higher jump and the shenanigans involving the hammer like spike breaking and higher spring bounces are pretty fun to mess around with and on some occasions, breaking spikes has proven to be a big life saver.

CEZ2 I think benefits from this with some of the paths having very do or die moments with the biggest blockade being spikes which Amy can easily dispose of especially if you screw up a jump and DCZ1/2 have some fun spring skips.

What are your most and least favorite aspects about her playstyle?
I'm on board with everyone here saying that her lack of momentum is a bit of a bummer. Granted I do think it's a fine trade off that she has better height with jumps and bounces but I think it does hurt when it comes to areas where you could be getting a ton of speed off of downward slopes and all you have to speed you up is hopping at the right time which may have you end up crashing into walls or overshooting into a pit (though I barely found this as a problem).

If there is anything that you felt Amy is "missing", what sort of gameplay changes would you be most interested in seeing?
I guess something that allows her to gain momentum from downward slopes. Amy is very much a methodical character in her design much akin to Sonic and Metal and she does have most of the tools available to tackle the levels in a manner that honestly reminds me of the same precision you'd have in a Mega Man game (particularly when you have sword weapons to play with), gauging the right time to use the hammer, knowing how long it's active for and knowing when the hearts come out.

I kind of feel a lot more people here want Amy to be a long more gung-ho with her move set with hammer jumps and twin spins. I would say MAYBE a twin spin when going at top speed but the more I play of Amy the more I feel that with what she has something like the hammer jump is pretty pointless.

Though one gripe I'm kind of having is how she can only hammer spin in the air once. I can understand not wanting it to be spammed but it can be pretty punishing especially if you time it WAY too early. At least give a big window of time before doing it again if you don't want it spammed.

Aside from these nitpicks, so far so good.
 
I haven't spent a ton of time with Amy (my furthest save file with her is DS1), but the suggestions above seem right and RealSalt's mod looks like a great improvement.

Is it just me or does Amy feel more slippery than any other character? It feels like she's gliding on roller skates but maybe it's just that her running animation sorta looks slower than it is?

I like that the spin-button hammer carries momentum although the animation could maybe show that it's a sliding movement a bit clearer.

So far bouncing higher on springs hasn't helped, only made it more likely for me to mess up the scripted spring moments in GF2... it's trickier fighting bosses with the hammer double jump, but it's a good challenge.
 

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