BioWare founders, Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, took a minute out of their time at the Game Developers Conference to explain how they will be bringing back our love for Sonic’s friends. I just wonder out there, who did have love for them in the first place. I never really had any hate for Knuckles, but other than Tails and him, I can’t even think of any more characters. In an amusing portion of the interview with MTV’s Multiplayer Blog, I think even Ray was confused about the question:

MTV: I think people pretty uniformly love the games you guys make. And I think people pretty uniformly are getting tired of Sonic having so many friends in all of his games. I think that puts you guys and your team in kind of a funny spot. Do you think …

Ray Muzyka, General Manager, BioWare: Which people?

MTV: Which characters?

Muzyka: No, which types of people complain about them?

MTV: It seems like the “Sonic” series, which was beloved when it came out on the Genesis…

Muzyka: [smiling] I still have my signed Genesis, signed by Yuji Naka-san plugged into my TV and it still works and I still play it. It’s fantastic.

Great job avoiding the question, he should be a politician. Eventually the question does get answered in a way that most gamers would know anyways, the friends will be the non-playable characters we are so used to in any RPG. Of course his answer spread out with Zeschuk’s answer in an attempt to make it as though every side character is an integral part to the storyline, which may be true, but having this on as a “younger audience” focused DS game leads me to believe that any sprites could be thrown together as the NPC’s, they have just (smartly) used older Sonic characters.

A nice note about the game though, is BioWare sticking to their own style of RPG, giving the players choices in how they handle their character in the game. Muzyka says on this, “the choice is moment to moment; it’s in the story; it’s within your exploration. It’s also within your choice of companion characters and sidekicks. And you’re going to have a different experience in BioWare games depending on who you bring with you. That was true in “Knights of the Old Republic,” it’s true in “Mass Effect,” and it’s true in all of our games. If you like certain characters that’s an opportunity and you get to travel with them.”

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