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I've run into a problem...
06 sucks!
Like we knew that, but writing wise, 06 is such a mess, and I don't- I don't know what to do about it, I have fanfic ideas that take place in 06! And it's such a mess that I feel like it'll tank the quality of my fanfic just from its garbage-ness!
And you might be thinking, oh, but 06 isn't that bad, you said yourself, it's one of your favorite games of all time, and other people deal with it just fine so–
No, you don't get it, it is that bad. And you can tell because almost nothing from that game made it out alive. Like, conceptually, there's some really cool stuff in 06. Crisis City's unique environment, Mephiles as a villain, double chaos control time powers (well...), Iblis, Soleanna. All that stuff is good, but because it was in 06. 06's garbage kinda rubbed off on it, and when everyone realized the game was horrible (including SEGA) all that stuff was never attempted again. No one decided to try and make Mephiles work in new games, no mention of Crisis City, or Solanna, or anything. It all just died with the game. Which makes it all the more impressive that Silver made it out alive.
But that's not the point. We all know it's bad.
The point is that idk where to go from here? Do I keep it the way it is? Do I change it? I'm leaning towards change but what should I change? Would people like those changes?
For example, Blaze is a mess. She's "got amnesia" or whatever, and she's here, but she doesn't talk to anyone but Silver (she almost does when she says "blue hedgehog" but that barely makes any sense and it wouldn't surprise me if it was secretly a pun lost in translation), she always seems to know what Silver was up to even if she wasn't there, she doesn't affect the plot other than making Silver doubt his judgement and then leaving, it's-, it's just a mess.
So, what if we cut Blaze out, altogether? Like, she left before Silver runs into Memphis so Silver's on his own. And since silver can't rely on her to tell him whether or not to trust Mephiles, it makes it so Silver believing him shows it off as a character trait of Silver's desperate naivety instead of it feeling like Blaze sitting there watching him get tricked cuz "it'd be funny". That whole scene really feels like Silver and Blaze get tricked by Mephiles because the plot demanded it of them more than anything else.
Plus, if you don't have Blaze here, Silver's heroes journey can be, in part, trying to figure out what to do when no one's around. Lean on other people less, make his own choices. You wouldn't even really need to cut Blaze's dialogue because Silver would be thinking "what would Blaze do/say?"
And I think it'd add to their friendship, the idea that when he comes back to the future and says he knows how to defeat Iblis, she just goes along with it, and is willing to do anything for Silver because they have such a strong relationship, because she trusts him.
But would people like that retcon? What if people hate it cuz there's less Blaze content?
Idk. It's just something I've been thinking about, there's more things I'd like to change, but luckily, a lot of 06 can be improved by adding extra context, or slightly different introductions that barely change the story.
I'd love to hear what other ppl have to say about dealing with 06's writing, tho