Amy Rose Discussion

[clairebun]

Some questions for everyone who has unlocked and had time to play with her:

1. How does Amy feel in terms of controls?
2. What are your most and least favorite aspects about her playstyle?
3. If there is anything that you felt Amy is "missing", what sort of gameplay changes would you be most interested in seeing?

 

[TrustyGun]

1. She controls pretty alright. One thing: I don't like how spinning in the air is tied to both the jump and spin keys. It's pretty easy to slip up and use your shield ability instead of hammer-spinning!

2. I don't really dislike any one aspect about her, but it feels like she doesn't have focus, for lack of a better term? She has a melee attack that can break spikes, heart projectiles that can give teammates shields, and she can hit springs to launch her further - but none of these abilities really come together to create one cohesive playstyle.

3. I kind of like what TehRealSalt's rebalancing mod did. Making it so she gains height by hammer-spinning enemies fits perfectly with the extra power she can gain from springs - doubly so in that mod since she can hammer-spin after hitting a spring!

 

[Hydro]

1. Amy feels pretty great! Her playstyle already encourages a bit more caution too, so no wonder why I slip up with her a lot less. Though I haven't had many issues with this yet, shields could likely get in the way with her abilities.
2. The best aspect of her gameplay without a doubt is her challenge aspect. It makes everything with her so much satisfying. Getting to the end of a set of platforms over a pit, performing a super high crawla bounce chain with timing, you name it! Even the fact she can open up new shortcuts and break spikes feels super cool. The only thing I don't really like is the fact she can't receive shields from other Amy players. I'm not entirely sure why it's like this, but it always rubbed me as a bit strange.
3. The only thing I think that's missing to her kit is simply letting her Twinspin after using a spring. Just this change alone would make chaining springs and bounces together so much better. I think she's probably the best designed of the new characters, and I don't think she's really missing anything besides a tweak to springs.

 

[time gear]

How does Amy feel in terms of controls?

Overall, she feels really great. She feels rather well balanced for what she is given with to work with.

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

My favorite thing about her is how she is given a higher jump height in compensation for having to rely on her hammer to hit enemies. This higher jump height comes in handy often and acts as great incentive to play as her over Sonic after unlocking her, despite her taking a little time to get skilled with.

My least favorite thing about her is that while jumping, both double jump and spin will swing her hammer. After getting used to the AmyTweaks lua, having some sort of alternate move assigned to spin when not using a shield feels like an absolute must.

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

As I mentioned in my previous answer, She could use an alternate move assigned to spin while jumping. Her gameplay style already feels more geared towards skill, tactics, and technical ability, so having something else to make use of in the air would probably suit her quite well. I find the AmyTweaks lua to be an absolute must have for this reason right now.

I feel like the hammer jump to gain even further height when running would also suit her quite well, but not as it's used in the AmyTweaks lua. The height you gain off it should probably be reduced a little bit, and it should probably be assigned to jump rather than spin so that if you still want to use the hammer to attack without gaining height, you can.

Something else I have been thinking of a lot that feels like a missed opportunity is when you unlock her, it would be great if you also unlock "Sonic and Amy" in the character select, with Amy's AI hugging Sonic every chance she gets so long as an enemy isn't too close, and her becoming oblivious to enemies as soon as she is in a hug state until Sonic jumps to cancel the hug. In addition to this being a rather humorous pairing, it could also add a degree of challenge to the game with Amy insisting on hugging Sonic during tricky platforming challenges.

 

[Rumia1]

I would like to preface this by saying that when it comes to Amy, I can't help but compare her to her previous incarnation (that being Katmint's Rosy) so this may color my opinion of her a bit.

Currently, I think she's a really fun and unique character to play as. Her need to press a button to activate her attack state has always been a thing that has made her stand out from the rest, and the ability to break spikes has created many new opportunies for alternate paths and areas only she can access. Badnik bouncing with her is really satisfying as is and the way she slides to a stop when using her standard hammer attack make using her normal attack very fun.

I am slightly weirded out by the fact that she can not harm other players in match using her hammer, I get that it's supposed to be a squeeky hammer and that's part of the comedy of it, but only being able to help her allies makes me feel like she's almost useless in Match. It's also very confusing in terms of consistency since not only does her hammer damage most enemies, but also the hearts that come from her melee attack. I could see only having the hammer do damage in Match but having it do 0 damage is just kind of wrong to me.

Another thing I miss from having Rosy in 2.1 is something that has already been addressed by a few members of the community, myself included (albiet I figured it out by accident) and that's her lack of mobility compared to the older incarnation of her. I don't think we need to give her all of the moves that Rosy had but I feel like one extra move that either shoots her up into the air ala her hammer jump like in Sonic Adventure or Advance, or brings her down ala her hammer drop from Rosy, or some entirely new concept, would do well to breathe new life into her playstyle.

Something I feel was underutilized in her current incarnation that I absolutely love the idea of is the fact that she can hit springs with her hammer to cause them to send her higher, much like Advance did. It's amazing but vanilla Amy has almost no need for this, even in speedrunning situations, and I feel that more could be done with it. If momentum were added, there would be a whole new reason to use her in gametypes like Race or Competition since hitting sideways springs with her hammer allows her to shoot off at incredibly fast speeds! I feel that pairing this with another mobility option would make her a very satisfying character to not only play casually, but also a fun character to master utilizing their routes. As for vertical springs, I only know of one situation in vanilla where using her hammer on a spring does something beneficial to her, and that's getting to the force shield area in GFZ2, perhaps I haven't played enough with her to notice anything else though.

Overall, I think she's very well done but she could use some more polish in terms of her moveset and utilizing all of her abilities. I'm very happy that she's made it into the game.

 

[Zwip-Zwap Zapony]

1. How does Amy feel in terms of controls?

That depends on whether or not I'm on a "steep" slope (or I'm fighting the pre-pinch phase of the CEZ3 boss). If I am, then she feels bad. Otherwise, good.


But being on a "steep" slope prevents Amy from using her hammer attack with the Spin key, despite still being on the ground.
I've found myself getting hurt by enemies several times due to expecting to hit an enemy when Amy then just... doesn't swing her hammer at all, for no good reason, and then proceeds to just run into the enemy.

(The technical reason is that the slope is too steep to stand still and rev a spindash on top of... but unlike revving a spindash, the hammer can be used while mobile, so why should that even matter? Therefore, "no good reason".)


Edit: Another thing that feels bad is that when standing on a vertically-moving platform, Amy's little hop when using the hammer is made much stronger on upwards-moving platforms, and much weaker on downwards-moving platforms.
So, on an upwards-moving platform, she gets more distance away from the platform (even if it's still moving) than from the floor if using it on a non-moving floor.
Meaning that even if the platform keeps moving with the same speed, it takes longer for Amy to land again on an upwards-moving platform than on a downwards-moving one.

3. 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 see Amy being able to swing her hammer while on "steep" slopes.

Maybe also being able to "twin-spin" after bouncing off a spring, even if it'd only be when activating the spring using the hammer (so not when just running or jumping into it), but I wouldn't be sad to not see that.

 

[Lat']

How does Amy feel in terms of controls?

Amy controls just as good as any other character overall (everyone has the same stats), so I won't say much about this part.

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

What I like:

• Amy is quite unique, with an interresting moveset and notably an interaction with springs that can send her higher or faster
  
• I loved her alternative paths, and even her ability to wriggle herself into some of Knuckles' path as well (hear: DSZ2, ACZ2 and ERZ1)
  
• Overall the need to get creative to deal with some situations with her limited kit. I realized I had to use Amy to get GFZ2's perfect bonus, which I did for fun, and it was a pretty endearing task!

What I don't like:

• Having no way to gain momentum through abilities, Amy struggles going up some slopes unless she already has a headstart. It feels like Sonic 1 all over again. It goes to show that there are little to no slopes at all in her sections.
  
• She cannot have any beneficial interaction with slopes by running down them as no momentum is gained unless you're spinning. It feels really stiff and awkward.
  
• Her Power Spring ability is underutilized, only being used on very mandatory spots and never really leading you to alternative paths. Because no momentum is kept on the ground, the ability is also completely useless on horizontal springs, which could have been a way for her to gain a huge burst of speed. (Though I may argue that this falls a bit more on the level design and not her kit)
  
• Her abilities overall are not designed for combat, there is no reward for fighting enemies with her less offensive kit that requires timing and commitment, which made me avoid any and all combat altogether to keep my Rings secure. The regular melee attack used with Spin overall has way too much end lag to have any use. Most notable threats to her are Jet Jaws which desperatly need their behavior to be more telegraphed and reactable to, Metal Sonic, which moves around quite unpredictably, and especially Brak Eggman, as he teleports around instead of actually walking and changes directions randomly, which makes the last hits especially difficult to land.
  

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

Overall, Amy lacks a way to alter her momentum and to benefit much from the most common elements of the game (slopes, horizontal springs), and does not benefit from combat either, which she has a hard time with, so all that effort feels kind of worthless and encourages you to avoid interactions and just run to the end.
Salt's character balance mod does adress the combat issue in a unique and interresting way, to that I would add the ability to jump out of her hammer attack end lag like Knuckles can spindash out of his crouch to give that attack some more use while also having the ability to keep your momentum. As for the rest, well it would require the ability to keep your speed on the ground and to gain speed from running down slopes.

tl;dr: Amy's unique, but her abilities are underutilized and don't give her many beneficial interactions with the game's most common elements such as slopes and horizontal springs outside of the sections designed specifically for her.

 

[MellowJacket]

How does Amy feel in terms of controls?

I think Amy controls pretty well right now overall, but I do have some trouble giving people shields in co-op as I will usually overshoot them by passing through them while in the hammer swing animation, however. Because only the hearts give shields, not the attack itself.

I also tend to get tripped up by shield abilities when playing as Amy. I need to break the habit of trying to use the hammer attack by pressing spin while in the air because it means I will accidentally use a shield ability instead of attacking. (Goodness knows I've killed myself as Amy by accidentally using the Force Shields stop over a pit).

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

I actually quite like how she's a little less powerful than the rest of the playable cast currently, perhaps I have a soft spot for Amy in Sonic Advance 1 and how she fulfilled a hard mode role, but I've always viewed the character select in SRB2 as a difficulty select since the difficulty options were first removed with 2.0. (Tails being easy mode and Amy being hard mode, for example).

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 be able to give players shields in co-op by hitting a player with the attack animation rather than just specifically the hearts. I don't know if that would be considered too powerful, but it does bother me that damaging enemies and giving other players helpful shields follow different rules despite being bound to the same abilities.

Otherwise, this isn't so much an Amy ability as it is a level design note, but I think the hammer spring bounce could be used to access Amy only paths in a way that isn't currently being utilized

 

[Spectorious]

I feel Amy is a very interesting and unique take on the usual gameplay style we're all used to, and she brings some nice ideas to the table.

She controls great just like everyone else, with the addition of a higher jump that can really come in handy every now and then. Also, her more limited moveset definitely adds a nice risk factor to her that makes playing her feel a lot more engaging at times. As precision, cation and timing is key to using her effectively.

However I feel this risk and limitation comes with way too little reward. As almost everything that she has in her arsenal (breaking walls, breaking spikes, etc) can be done by other characters, who are way more effective at it. The only truly unique thing that she has going for her, is hitting springs with the hammer for extra height. It's an amazing concept from Sonic Advance that I'm glad made a return, and it's does feel hella satisfying to pull off! However like many others have pointed out, this gameplay concept is extremely underutilised, and it's only really useful for getting one ore two emblems. TehRealSalt's character rebalancing wad feels like a true realisation of this concept. As it begs the question, Why just stop at springs? I feel this actually rewards you accordingly for timing you swings well, as well having good manoeuvrability and mastery of the controls. This truly makes her feel like hard mode character she always wanted to be, high risk should come with high reward!

Furthermore, I really think that her spin ability in it's current state is pretty problematic. As just like Knuckles's crouch, the ending lag it has really breaks the flow of gameplay, and just overall really distinctiveness the player to use it all together. As for the most part, your just better of jumping and swinging or just avoiding combat altogether. I feel much more suitable ability for pressing the spin button would have been a hammer spin of sorts that has a wide range and allows her to keep all her speed. Hell it could even deflect projectiles. As that way she'd have another trick up her sleeve that no one else has, and it'd pair very nicely with her current hammer swing, due to both of them being built off the concept of good timing and precision.

Right now moveset-wise, she just feels really... naked. There's almost no intensive to play as her outside of getting a few emblems and maybe playing a lacklustre support-esk role in Multiplayer via the shield giving mechanic.

 

[MK.exe]

1. I feel like amy controls good, she has great height when jumping and feels so fun to play when you build enough momentum.

2. Her hammer whilst in mid air, the window should be a little wider since it can be often to miss an attack and take an hit.

3. Similar to what lat said about her feeling empty movement wise. Her movment set is totally fine but i feel like it could be expanded with another hammer attack to build some starting momentum. Something if some sort of hammer jump to boost her speed to make her viable in race. (something similar to the one in addons)

 

[Frisktaker]

I actually quite like how she's a little less powerful than the rest of the playable cast currently, perhaps I have a soft spot for Amy in Sonic Advance 1 and how she fulfilled a hard mode role, but I've always viewed the character select in SRB2 as a difficulty select since the difficulty options were first removed with 2.0. (Tails being easy mode and Amy being hard mode, for example).

I see it more as playstyle select. Some are harder or easier, yes, but I view that as incidental rather than blanket difficulty.

She controls decent. I like her paths

I do believe she needs more mobility. Cobalt's Momentum wad and the rebalance wad complement her nicely imo

 

[Eliwood]

How does Amy feel in terms of controls?

As far as overall feel, as long as she's not on a slope she feels nice. The fact that she gets absolutely no benefit from slopes whatsoever is really annoying. This is also true for Fang as well. Though I don't know if this is the best place to mention here, but her hammer swing "hitbox" just feels waaaayyy too small. There have been quite a few moments where I'd use her hammer swing into an enemy and I can physically see the sprites overlap, yet somehow that doesn't count as a hit? Please make the hammer swing have a larger hitbox.

Tl;dr - Feels good, Hammer Hitbox feels too small, hate how she cannot benefit from momentum due to really low speed cap.

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

I'm a sucker for being forced to time swings to do damage. It's an added level of complexity for me which I enjoy. However based on things people have mentioned before, her not getting any significant height from crawla bouncing with the hammer can be somewhat disappointing. Also I really feel necessary to repeat this before, but my least favorite aspect is gaining 0 benefit from slopes. Really fun speed sections for literally any other character (besides Fang) feel very stilted and super unfun. If I could ask for anything, it would be fixing this glaring issue. I'd rather Sonic become overpowered from thoking with a removed speed cap if it meant that I could actually benefit from slopes or side-ways springs.

My least favorite thing about her playstyle? She doesn't have good ways of keeping momentum going. This is most evident when doing a grounded hammer swing. What's my suggested solution? Well...

Tl;dr - I like her playstyle, but do not enjoy how she cannot benefit from momentum gaining set pieces due to the low ground speed cap.

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

I've played some Rosy wads where the hammer jump was a little too good, and I don't want to advocate for that, but I think having a hammer jump from the ground when in a running state would be a fantastic way to keep the momentum going without slowing the character down. Take the Metal Sonic raceway for instance. If you gave Amy a hammer jump that could be maintained you could burst through that section without taking any slowdown. I genuinely think this would improve Amy's gameplay overall.

I would love if there was some visual flair to the hammer jump, and my recommendation is that after doing the hammer jump have her go into the spin frames she gets into when she grabs onto the swings in Castle Eggman, but when she reaches the peak of her jump she goes back into her regular jump afterwards. Having Amy feel acrobatic with this would help with keeping her speed up which would be great. I would also allow her to use her hammer again from a hammer jump so she can chain hammer swings like she does before. Amy could hypothetically attain a great height from this if played with correctly and I absolutely want to see this become her standard.

While you could argue for jumping and then hammer swinging to achieve a similar effect, I think hammer jumps like Sonic Adventure just feel nicer to use. To be honest if Amy got a nerf to her regular jump to compensate for this I'd have zero issue with this whatsoever, as this would make using that jump a significant part of her tool kit. Though I don't think she should just jump as low as Knuckles.

Tl;dr - Give Amy a Hammer Jump with spin frames for visual flair that returns to regular jump frames afterwards. Hammer Jump can be used to maintain momentum and not kill it from using hammer on the ground. Not a fan of momentum killing abilities.

=====================================

Also this is a general unrelated thought, but given that Amy has spin frames would having her be in a spin state be confusing to a player as a visual signifier that you cannot use her hammer anymore? Or do you think players would assume Amy's spin frames would mean she could jump on enemies afterwards?

Just a thought.

 

[Goldenhog]

How does Amy feel in terms of controls?

Using aspects of Amy's gameplay from Sonic Adventure/Sonic Advance is always a win in my book. I do have my gripes with her (detailed below) but overall I'd say she's my second favorite character for casual playing, next to Sonic.

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

"Timed hit"-type mechanics are awesome and I wish they were present in more games. It's the reason why the Insta-Shield is my favorite Sonic ability and why I enjoy (some of) the Mario RPG games so much. Before writing this post, I went and played the whole game as Amy, but this time going through areas I don't commonly visit or doing things I don't usually do, like chasing down Fang instead of waiting until he stops bouncing. Made me like her twinspin much more, it can be very tough but also very fair. I like that if you hold down the jump or spin button as you hit the ground while doing the twinspin, you'll get an instantaneous melee attack on the ground, as a little extra safety in case you missed by just a thread, a la deathbombing in Touhou. The little things! And I imagine the ability of doing the twinspin in the air by pressing spin instead of jump was done because of how natural it feels, and it's right!

...Though that is where the problems start. Having that option, and coupled with how natural it is to do, trains the player into using twinspin with the spin button, which will lead to disasterous results with a shield on, and then you have to counter-train yourself to stop doing that. Speaking of natural, it also feels natural to be able to twinspin after using a spring - but you can't do that. Not even if you twinspin off of said spring, even after you know that you can keep twinspinning after hitting an enemy or monitor (which is something I'll get to shortly) and twinspinning into a spring has an actual effect that seems to be there to help you continue your chain. It's a conveyance problem - jumping and springing have the same animation and similar mechanics (neither of them allows you to touch an enemy and live, unlike S/T/K/M who damage enemies with a jump but not off a spring and have different animations for each) so it makes one think twinspin is possible with both. If I could sprite to save my life, what I would do is make Amy have her hammer out whenever she can do her twinspin and make her hammer go away when she can't. This would also solve something I mentioned earlier - if you successfully hit an enemy or monitor with a twinspin, you can twinspin again. Which is indicated absolutely nowhere, I found out about it by complete accident. Lastly, I've barely touched on the ground melee attack. It's... meh. I use it mostly if I have to, otherwise I stick with midair twinspins. Maybe its recovery time does need to be reduced slightly, as in Katmint's Revised character and shield abilities script.

Also something something steep slopes, something something her spring boosting is not really utilized by the levels, something something ground friction ruins horizontal springs for her. Those things have been covered elsewhere in the thread and by people who could explain them better than me. Also yes a bunch of what I said in the previous paragraph is stuff I'd say about Fang as well.

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

Regardless of what I said in the last section, being able to twinspin after a spring is something she needs, at the very least if the spring is one she twinspun or melee'd onto. She should also gain a wee bit extra height from each enemy/monitor bounce she does. These would put a lot more focus on her ability and makes her stand out from the others that much more. Also, this would break the heck outta people's replays so I don't expect it to happen, at least not until 2.3, but I wish Amy was unable to use twinspin with the spin button. Jump abilities should only be performed by pressing the jump button in midair, as is the case with every other character.

 

[MellowJacket]

I see it more as playstyle select. Some are harder or easier, yes, but I view that as incidental rather than blanket difficulty.

Oh, that's what I meant. The difficulty is incidental because of the characters design choices rather than Amy being intended as a hard mode toggle but my point was that I think there's value in there being a character that's handicapped and has a more difficult time than the rest of the cast, and I think Amy fulfills that role currently.

 

[fickleheart]

Amy is generally really smooth and fun to play as. She might be the only character in the game where handling your momentum is important at all times, and the lack of a spin or projectile means that dealing with enemies is challenging. I personally like her lack of ability to gain big speed from slopes since it discourages mappers from using big spin cutscene setpieces everywhere in maps, which I think take up a lot of space for not enough benefit.


She is incredibly ill-equipped to handle certain enemies. Jetty-syns and other enemies like that (like the AGZ bees) are practically luck to hit without taking damage. I think if her hammer flip had a wider attack radius, it would help a lot.


If people want her to be able to take advantage of slopes, I really like taking the hammer spin idea mentioned above, using it at high speeds, and giving it lower friction. I don't think it needs to be rolling levels of low friction, but something to hold speed in exchange for less control, like other characters have, would help her mesh a little better with the current level design. If it lasted an indefinite length of time until you let go of spin or came to a stop, it would have the advantage of letting her get back to normal movement state without having to jump out of it, which gives her an advantage over other characters.


It might be nice to let her use her hammer spin any time she's in jumping frames, including plain ol' multiability. It doesn't give her much in mobility options, which is the big reason to prevent it for other characters, and it'd fix the unintuitiveness that "you can do this again if you bounce off of something but not otherwise" has.

 

[JackelZXA]

• Her abilities overall are not designed for combat, there is no reward for fighting enemies with her less offensive kit that requires timing and commitment, which made me avoid any and all combat altogether to keep my Rings secure. The regular melee attack used with Spin overall has way too much end lag to have any use. Most notable threats to her are Jet Jaws which desperatly need their behavior to be more telegraphed and reactable to, Metal Sonic, which moves around quite unpredictably, and especially Brak Eggman, as he teleports around instead of actually walking and changes directions randomly, which makes the last hits especially difficult to land.

I actually found amy super useful for combat. her hearts are like a spread shot of a hitbox, and she can hit 2 hit enemies twice at once with proper timing, letting her obliterate enemies in castle eggman zone. her air swing also has a bigger hitbox it feels and her jump is slightly lighter, so with proper timing you can have an advantage on bosses.

I do feel like she could use one more thing though, not sure what, and I feel like letting her swing her hammer more than once in midair would make her more fun, as well as allowing her to swing after springing or falling. MAYBE letting her block damage from projectiles with her swing could be fun?

I really like how it feels to hammer swing right before landing and get a nice clunk feel as it does the ground swing. Maybe there could be some kind of move built around this? (Continual swing in midair into a ground slam that drops extra hearts with limited movement during the fall?)

Maybe give her a short hammer twirl attack if you use it while running, which maintains speed but restricts turning while the twirl is playing? (Kind of like a mini spin dash with a large hitbox and no crouch effects)

 

[Kaysakado]

I like playing as Amy due to how pared down the gameplay feels - it really brings you to the core of SRB2's platforming as you don't have any ways to instantly adjust your momentum. The increased jump is perfect - it lets Amy make a surprising amount of moves that are impossible for other characters but it doesn't give her the ability to totally avoid many obstacles the same way Tails can.

The hammer feels nice and intuitive to use, and the [Heavy Impact] sound is always satisfying. But on the other hand, I rarely find it an actual viable choice and a lot of my gameplay tends to revolve around avoiding activating the hammer (e.g. making sure not to twinspin too close to the ground). It's just a little too slow for my taste.

Furthermore, the heart spread is an interesting way to kill clusters of enemies on the ground, but how often do you really see that kind of formation in game? They can also be a little imprecise - first time playing ACZ as Amy I hit a TNT because there was a monitor next to it I was trying to grab.

Let me be clear.

This was absolutely hilarious and I love it. But I'll make sure never to do it again.

Another odd thing about the hammer is it's the only thing in the game (AFAIK) affected by directionchar. The little hop goes in the direction that you're moving, analogous to spinning with other characters, and this feels nice and intuitive. But then the heart projectiles move the way Amy's sprite is facing. I think it would be worth having this attack override directionchar for a moment so that Amy's sprite always faces whatever direction the hop is moving in - just for consistent gameplay. It would certainly look a little less awkward.

The twinspin is great and adds just a little bit of extra layer to Amy's gameplay. Like some others have mentioned, I'd love to see the twinspin be usable after springing. Visually it makes sense (you're using the same sprites as jumping so...) and thematically it fits with her power spring ability. It could open a few more paths and tricks for her as well.

The ability to twinspin again after landing a successful hit is critical for Amy to be able to do the same kind of multibounces that are a staple of classic Sonic, but it's an unintuitive rule. It doesn't make sense until the player figures it out. I don't think it would be too gamebreaking for the twinspin to simply be multiability with a small cooldown. That said, I don't think it would make a huge difference either way.

Finally, as others said, being able to use both jump and spin to hammer in the air threw me a little bit at first - accidentally using spin when having a shield. But once I got used to it it felt great. I'll note that being able to use spin opens a few niche possibilities for Amy - namely, being able to twinspin while jumping upwards, without jump cancelling. Important for fighting some airborne enemies. I'd like to see these controls stay the same, but again, I don't think it will be a huge difference either way if this is changed.

 

[Aegix]

I haven't had tons of time with her yet (haven't finished her run yet), but here's my 2 cents thus far.

She's a cute little hard mode for the game and I generally like her a whole lot, even though I'm positive I'll never finish Egg Rock with her.

How does Amy feel in terms of controls?

Not bad, but there's a handful of issues.

a) Please, for the love of mod, remove the midair hammer swing from the spin button. It leads to bad habits that I'm having to unlearn whenever I pick up a shield. :s

b) Getting stuck in certain places with steep slopes is VERY painful. Especially when underwater. Water is just plain painful for her in general, even moreso than Fang. So, combine water AND a slope? *sobs quietly to self*

I get that not having instant-speed and rolling is key to her playstyle and challenge, but it makes some areas quite unfun.

Might I recommend some kind of "dashing" state when you Hammer a sideways spring that allows for better momentum conservation on the ground? It would make certain bits feel a little better, I think.

c) It took me a long while to realize I could swing my hammer multiple times in the air...BUT ONLY if I hit something with it. A little visual cue would be VERY appreciated.

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

Favourite: She forces you to rethink the entire game, since she's severely mobility starved. It actually pushes you to Git Gud since you can't cheese the platforming OR enemies.


Least favourite: Complete inability to interface with slopes, and the tiiiiiny little attack window when air-hammering. You gotta be pitch perfect or you're boned, which so far kinda leaves me a teeny bit cold.

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

It feels like she's missing something...But I can't quite put my finger on what it is. Maybe as I play her more I'll figure that out.


I've seen the gifs of her ridiculous modded monitor bouncing, and honestly, maybe if she had a sliiiiightly less insane bounce (additive, like a double jump kind of thing, instead of multiplicative or exponential like it looks to be) that'd be enough to tip her over the top?

 

[Noelle]

After beating the game as every character, I can safely say Amy is one of my favorites. All of her aspects add up to make up for the fact that she doesn't have any real mid-air abilities. She isn't really underpowered like she seems; a skilled player can easily use her easy ground maneuverability to platform faster than other characters. Honestly, she's just fine as is.

 

[Frostav]

I love playing as Amy, but I also really do not like how slow breaking floors with her is. Knuckles can break stuff just walking/gliding into it, Sonic, Tails, and Metal spindash through stuff, and Fang can chain a bounce through a floor into another bounce. But Amy, when she breaks floors, has to stop in her tracks, swing her hammer, fall down, and go through the very slow heart animation when she touches ground again before she can move.



Of course, you can just jump and hammer. More pressing is the fact that Amy can't hammer in mid-air if she walks off a cliff. Other characters don't curl when they walk off cliffs, so of course they're defenseless, but Amy has a weapon--why can't she defend herself if she walks off a cliff?


But really that's the only issues I have with her.

Spoiler

give her a hammer jump