Silver the Hedgehog

Silver the Hedgehog
'Sonic the Hedgehog' character
File:Silver the Hedgehog artwork.png Silver in official artwork from Sonic Channel
First game	Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)

Silver the Hedgehog (シルバー・ザ・ヘッジホッグ, Shirubā za Hejjihoggu) is a fictional character in Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog video game series. He is a light-grey anthropomorphic hedgehog who has a variety of telekinetic abilities. He comes from the future and is an optimist despite his future's ruined state, although he is also somewhat naive and dependent.

Silver debuted in the 2006 Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game Sonic the Hedgehog. Developer Sonic Team conceived of a telekinetic character to make the most of the game's powerful engine and effect variety in the game. The character was first conceived as a mink and, later, an orange hedgehog, before his current design reached fruition. In the game, Silver and Blaze arrive from the future to destroy an ancient artifact that led to the world's ruin. He is one of three main playable characters, along with Sonic the Hedgehog and Shadow the Hedgehog.

He has appeared in numerous Sonic games afterwards, starting with Sonic Rivals, and become an established character in the series, as well as a recurring character in the Sonic the Hedgehog comics. Critics' response to him has been mixed; they have generally praised his abilities but been less forgiving toward his gameplay and the perceived plot holes his storyline initially introduced.

Design and characteristics

Conception and visual design

Sonic Team, who developed the 2006 Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game Sonic the Hedgehog, conceived of a character with telekinetic powers as a way of capitalizing on the game's powerful physics engine. Protagonist Sonic the Hedgehog was slated to have fast-paced levels, as he usually does in games in the series, so Silver was designed to stretch what the hardware could accomplish with slower-paced, technique-based gameplay. In the canon of the series, Silver comes from the future; Silver received this type of backstory and telekinetic abilities because they were "new attributes that no other Sonic characters [sic] has."

With these goals in mind, Sonic Team created more than 50 possible designs for such a character. One, which was marked by "Sonic's scarf like hair, but in more volume", led to Silver being conceived as an anthropomorphic mink. However, the team was concerned that a mink would not fit in with the series' established cast of characters, so they changed him to be a hedgehog like Sonic and Shadow, the game's two other main playable characters. His coloring was a topic of lengthy discussion; orange was the team's first choice, but they eventually settled on light grey, which would be the origin of his name.

It is also revealed that Silver was originally planned to be a mink named Venice after Venice, Italy, the place Soleanna is based on.

Personality and abilities

Silver's abilities with telekinesis are wide-ranging. He can raise nearby objects off the ground, push them away, hurl them, or otherwise manipulate them, both individually and all at once. These techniques extend to living entities and robots, which he can temporarily paralyze and manipulate with similar mechanisms. He can also use telekinesis on himself, allowing him to levitate and teleport.

In the continuity of Sonic 06, Silver's best friend is Blaze the Cat, who arrives with him from the future. Although the world Silver comes from is in chaos, he has an optimistic personality and strong sense of justice. However, he prefers to keep Blaze alongside him, as he is insecure without her. She describes him as naive.

Appearances

In Sonic the Hedgehog, Silver and Blaze arrive in the present day from the future in order to circumvent a disaster that occurred between the present and their time and was caused by a fiery demon named Iblis. After finally finding Iblis and rendering it helpless, Silver tries to use Chaos Control to seal it inside his soul and cast himself into another dimension, in order to spare the future from it. However, he is unable to absorb it, and cannot bring himself to use the technique on Blaze, so she does it herself and says goodbye to Silver as he forlornly watches her fade away. However, the game's events are later erased and Blaze appears in future titles while Silver appears in some spinoff games.

Silver returns in Sonic Generations as part of a boss battle and has been playable in both Sonic Rivals and its sequel. He is also playable alongside Blaze in Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity and Sonic Free Riders.

In the game Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, Blaze appears as a playable character but Silver does not appear,except in the beta version. He later made an appearance in Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games and the games that followed.

Reception

Silver's reception from the video game press has been mixed. Jim Sterling of the websites Destructoid and GamesRadar has castigated Silver, naming him as the "catch" to the otherwise high-quality Sonic Generations, and later calling him "an abortion from the get-go, a completely worthless addition to the franchise who provided nothing of note and ostensibly stole his special telekinetic abilities from other, better games." Sterling also ranked him as the seventh worst Sonic character. 1UP.com's Shane Bettenhausen offered praise for Silver's telekinesis, but found his gameplay, while more enjoyable than Shadow's and Tails', to be grueling. GamesRadar's review of the game gave a similar conclusion. Dan Griolopolous of Official Xbox Magazine was more positive, stating that Silver's powers are "interesting" and the slower pace of his levels compared to Sonic's would help keep the player from dying frequently.

External links

• Silver's profile at the Sonic Wiki