Amy Rose

Amy Rose (エミー・ローズ), known earlier as Rosy the Rascal, is a video game character who appears in most of the Sonic the Hedgehog series of video games developed by Sega's Sonic Team, debuting in Sonic CD (1993) as the third recurring protagonist. Amy Rose was created by Kazuyuki Hoshino and based on one of Kenji Terada's characters. She was redesigned by Yuji Uekawa for Sonic Adventure. She is a pink, female, anthropomorphic hedgehog who is obsessed with series eponym and protagonist Sonic, even going so far as to declare herself his girlfriend. She has chased Sonic since her debut in 1993, and has been trying to win his heart in everything from the series' games to animated TV shows and comics. She is also one of the series most popular characters, coming in fifth place in an official popularity poll.

Like Sonic and other characters in the series, Amy is significantly shorter and lighter than humans her same age. To be precise, she is 12 years old, 90 cm (2 ft 11in) tall, and her weight is a secret. She was originally described as being 8 years old in Sonic CD, but as of Sonic Adventure and onwards, she has grown older. Also, with the addition of Cream the Rabbit, Amy seems to have found herself a sidekick similar to Sonic's sidekick, Tails.

Concept and creation
The character of Amy Rose was adapted by Kazuyuki Hoshino for Sonic CD in 1993 from the Sonic the Hedgehog manga which was published on September 23, 1992. Her character's use in Sonic CD was as Sonic's "main love interest," with the twist that Sonic wasn't interested in Amy's affection. Sonic Team's Yuji Naka said in an interview that the character's style is to always chase Sonic and didn't foresee changing her role in the future.

Characteristics
Amy's character is the bright and overly cheerful self-appointed girlfriend of Sonic. She loves soft-serve ice cream and hates boredom, has a natural initiative, and a strong competitive streak, but gets into trouble often. With her strong sense of intuition and great passion Sonic has difficulty escaping her. Because of her pure heart, her character has often been used as the series Ingenue. Amy is quite formidable with her Piko Piko Hammer, a weapon with which her skills are second to none.

Games


In her first game appearance, Sonic CD (1993), Amy was kidnapped by Metal Sonic. Doctor Robotnik then used the time stones to set time back on the Little Planet. She was named "Princess Sally" in the American manual of the Sega CD version in a tentative to tie in with the cartoon, though all the other versions of the game and later games called her mainly Amy Rose. Being a Genesis-era game (though technically a Sega CD game), Sonic CD's plot was minimal. Amy's only personality trait was that she was a big fan of Sonic, and no real reason was given for her kidnapping besides as bait for Sonic. Though Sonic CD was released after Sonic the Hedgehog 2, it was in production at the same time, meaning that Amy has approximately been around as long as Tails has.

Amy's first use of the Piko Piko Hammer was in Sonic the Fighters. This game used her "Rosy the Rascal" nickname as well, though it has not been used since, except in the Archie comics series, when used to describe her Moebius (aka Anti-Mobius) counterpart.

In 1999, Sonic Adventure thrust Amy in the spotlight. She is a playable character in the game and uses her weapon of choice, the Piko Piko Hammer, to defend herself during her quest to find the family of a bird that escaped Eggman and crashed into her. Like the other major characters in the series, Amy was redesigned significantly for this game. Her quills were redesigned into shoulder-length hair, and she now wears a sleeveless red sundress held on by a white-trimmed halter strap with matching trim on the skirt, and red go-go boots with a white stripe from the top to the tip to take advantage of her more mature 12-year-old form. She was given green eyes, the same eye color as Sonic had only in a lighter value.

She was an important supporting character in Sonic Adventure 2 (2001) and was playable in 2-player mode. When Sonic was kept in an island prison, with Tails' help she managed to free him. This happened to be one of the many times Amy has saved Sonic rather than the opposite. However, she ended up being held hostage at gun-point by Eggman later in the game. He threatened to kill her if Sonic did not quickly get a Chaos Emerald. She even talked Shadow into helping the team stop the destruction of the Earth, as her innocence reminded him of the deceased human Maria whom he befriended years ago.

Her first playable appearance in a 2D game was in Sonic Advance (2002). Her gameplay was significantly different to the other characters as she did not immediately go into a spin attack when jumping. She later appeared as an unlockable character in Sonic Advance 2 (2003) (where she had the spin attack ability) and as a main character in Sonic Advance 3 (2004).

In Sonic Heroes (2004), Amy leads Team Rose. She represents the team's Speed formation. She is accompanied by Cream the Rabbit and Big the Cat on a mission to impress Sonic, while Big wants to find his friend Froggy and Cream and Cheese want to find Cheese's sibling, Chocola, all the while inspiring the whole team, cheering her friends on.

Amy has appeared alongside Sonic and the rest of the cast in Shadow the Hedgehog (2005), Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), Sonic Riders (2006), Sonic and the Secret Rings (2007) and most of the newer games. Her outfits have changed for certain games, such as the one she wears for Sonic Riders. She also appears as a trophy in Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008).

She appeared as a playable character in Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood (2008) for the Nintendo DS, the first Sonic RPG game. In this game, Amy indicates that she has a boyfriend. Although, if the player chooses the right things to say to her, Amy reveals in the end that she was lying to make Sonic jealous.

In Sonic Unleashed (2008), she fails to recognize Sonic in his were-hog form though after he saves her the whole incident is explained by Professor Pickle. She then proceeds to help the professor to help Sonic. She appears in a video at the end of the game Sonic and the Black Knight (2009), not believing Sonic's story about his Arthurian adventures and claiming that he made it up as an excuse for missing a date with her.

She is a playable character in the sport titles Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games.

She also appears in Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing. She rides a pink car and uses her Piko-Piko Hammer as her All-Star move.

Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)
In the Sonic the Hedgehog (comics), Amy was the same age as depicted in the original games. In a flashback, Amy was shown trying to become a part of the Freedom Fighters, but was denied by Sally Acorn. Amy accused Sally of the reason so she "won't get closer to Sonic". However, the true reason was that Amy was far too young at the time, as she was only 8 years old and did not have the experience like Tails did. However, during the Sonic Adventure adaptation, she makes a wish on the Ring of Acorns, which caused her to grow physically older, reaching the age of 12, while maintaining her childish mindset and making her appear to be something of a ditz. After this, Amy once again requested to join the Freedom Fighters, but was denied again by Sonic, who told her having an older body is not enough, she still had the mentality of an 8-year old and no fighting experience. A year later, when Sonic returned to Mobius, Amy was finally allowed to join the Freedom Fighters after being awarded a medal by Sally as thanks for her service in helping the Freedom Fighters. Amy was overwhelmed with happiness that one of her wishes came true.

Amy undergoes combat training with the former Dark Legion soldier Julie-Su. When Julie explains that Amy should want this training to better herself rather than to impress Sonic, Amy replies that she does want to better herself so that no one else will be more worthy of Sonic's affection than her. While not the first to discover it, Amy was the first to oust Fiona Fox for cheating on Sonic with Scourge, enraged that anyone would play with Sonic's emotions so cruelly. She serves as the flower girl at Antoine and Bunnie's wedding, and, not long after, is one of the few to avoid capture during the destruction of Knothole. While initially distraught, she immediately takes part in the rescue mission; with her hammer, she and Knuckles destroy the Egg Grapes and free several captives. After the escape, she is shown supporting Rotor, whose back was injured during the initial attack. She would go on to help Sally save Sonic from Mammoth Mogul.

Later, she travels with Sonic to Moebius (the Anti-Universe version of Mobius) to find help to stop Scourge. However, Rosy the Rascal, a Moebius version of Amy, was all that was available. Unlike Amy, she hates Scourge and wants to destroy him. She used the Ring of Acorns to make herself older so she'll appear as more of a threat to Scourge. However, the transformation had a few side effects, which made Rosy insane. Her character design resembles her look from Sonic CD. Eventually, Sonic defeats Scourge and she goes back to Mobius, leaving the fate of Rosy unknown. She then goes on to help Sonic in the ultimate battle against Eggman, even attempting to comfort him after Sonic shows sign of guilt towards Eggman's mental breakdown. Which just goes to show that she would do anything for Sonic, probaly for as long as she lives.

Sonic the Comic
Amy makes frequent appearances in the British publication, Sonic the Comic. Whilst initially representative of her Sonic CD counterpart, ie. head over heels in love with Sonic, she later became a more active member of the Freedom Fighters, and she has been generally less amorous towards Sonic. She wears a grey sweatshirt and carries around a crossbow used to attack badniks. She generally kept her hairstyle from Sonic CD, though as of the online continuation of the comic, her hair is based on her Sonic Adventure look, and she wears a variety of outfits from story to story. Her backstory is similar to that of Sonic's in British publications, being that she was once a brown coloured hedgehog. However, after being rescued from one of Robotnik's machines by Sonic, she became pink. She generally pairs up with Tekno the Canary to solve problems around the universe.

Sonic Adventures
Two French-made comic books published by Sirène were released in 1994. Amy appears in the first volume Sonic Adventures: Dans Les Griffes De Robotnik being kidnapped by Robotnik as bait to get Sonic. This version of Amy had the same design as in Sonic CD.

Reception
A Games Radar article called Amy Rose's introduction "the only bitter taste" in Sonic CD, but added that "she's just a pink hedgehog here and not a whiny, annoying brat like in Sonic Adventure." In an IGN article "Smash It Up", Lucas M Thomas stated that "one of the coolest things about [Amy Rose's character] is her enormous, walloping hammer" that is often used for comedy in the series.

In a retrospective of the series, IGN staff writer Levi Buchanan stated "Who buys a Sonic game to ... swat bad guys with Amy Rose's hammer?", criticizing the introduction of too many characters which supposedly began shortly after Amy's introduction.

Notes and references
In addition to information taken from the Sonic the Hedgehog games themselves, the instruction booklets of the US and Japanese versions of the games were also used as references for this article.