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Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik
First Appearance: Sonic the Hedgehog (1991)

I'm just going to outright say it. Dr. Eggman is the best character in the entire Sonic series and probably one of the best franchise main antagonists in all of video games. Prepare for a lot of gushing.

So let's just start out with his appearance. It's evolved over the years, but he used to be a little egg-shaped weirdo with bottle glasses and a ridiculous moustache. He's since upgraded Sonic Adventure 1 onward to a more of a red overcoat, still round-looking fella, with a very engineer look to him, and it works incredibly well. We don't talk about his Sonic 2006 look because that was easily the worst he's ever looked. (And the uncanny valley teeth situation he has in Shadow the Hedgehog) But for the most part, his look is incredibly distinctive, menacing, and iconic.

Now since the original Sonic games, he was simple. He put animals in his machines to power up his robots and attacked Sonic with fancy new upgrades to his Egg Mobile, each new and iconic. What made him stand out was that you saw him at every step you took with a new death upgrade to his machine. He wasn't just hanging out in the background--Eggman was constantly trying to destroy Sonic. He's persistent and no matter what, he's using every single new invention of his to kill that stupid blue hedgehog.

But then we get to see what Eggman has in store. He's escalated his plots with theming based on himself and his giant ego. We get a Death Egg that is a looming threat for the whole game. A giant space station that Sonic has to literally travel to and he comes out with the coolest machine yet to face Sonic: the Death Egg Robot that is just a ginormous version of himself. Sonic destroys it and the Death Egg explodes, but fortuitously it lands on a place called Angel Island. First though, he comes up with another plot to use Time Stones this time and created Metal Sonic which is just a cool robot replica of Sonic, trying to control time itself before Sonic defeats him again.

But we go back to Sonic 3 & Knuckles where we see a more fiendish side of Dr. Eggman. He's not just a genius engineer--he has plots and plans! Schemes, if you will. He tricks Knuckles into attacking Sonic thinking he wants to steal the Master Emerald, when meanwhile Eggman wanted to use it this whole time to power his Death Egg up again! And Eggman eventually does get his Death Egg flying again... only for it to fall again because of that damn hedgehog. But he still plans to send it back into space and succeeds! And eventually Sonic and Tails manage to destroy the Death Egg once and for all and Eggman has no choice but to try and escape with the Master Emerald in his old Death Egg Robot, but gets defeated by Super/Hyper Sonic! The Death Egg is so special because you see it looming, constantly, through the whole game. And it feels like such an accomplishment to once again go through all of these intricate zones to stop it once and for all, and when you do, you get such an incredible sequence at the end where they give you juuuuust a little bit more and give you a chance to really wallop Eggman with a special Hyper Sonic fight! It's just so good and it wouldn't work nearly as well if Eggman wasn't such a good villain leading up to that.

But we change to give Eggman a very distinct personality from Sonic Adventure 1 onward. Now, he's supremely arrogant (although we kind of had an idea of that), thinks himself a genius, and hates that god damn Sonic the Hedgehog so much, but he's always so sure of whatever plan he has. He's got such a deliciously sinister personality, while still allowing for him to be the butt of a joke. He's so, so, so very good and they nailed his personality flawlessly.

In Sonic Adventure 1 he tries to use the Chaos Emeralds this time to power up Chaos. Which, you know, turns on him when it was time to unleash the full power. Where Eggman is so strong in this game is that we get to witness him actively collecting and scheming for the Chaos Emeralds and pitting people against each other in everyone's story. And not only that, we also get to see his creations in glorious 3D, and an Egg Carrier! He does come across as such a strong adversary here, despite not being the final boss.

We skip to Sonic Adventure 2 and we get to actually play as Eggman. And now, we get to see more nuance to his character. Yes, he's evil, yes he's always coming up with evil plans... but he has a limit. While he'll gleefully kill Sonic towards the end (psyche), but when it comes to the planet being destroyed... that's where he draws the line. Without a planet, what can he rule? He comes up with the plan to stop it from happening and works with everyone to make it happen.

And in Sonic Heroes... I mean, he's got a ton of impressive stuff but uh... you know, that's not him. So... He's in a bunch of spin-off games and usually the highlight of those as well, but we have Sonic 2006 where he's... well, they made an attempt to make him more sterile and serious which kind of sucks. He's still outstanding in it and probably one of the best parts of that game, but fuck. This game screws up everything.

But we're back on pace for Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Colors, Sonic Generations, Lost Worlds, and Forces. In those, he's equal parts menacing, serious, and sinister, while also having a lot more comedy about him. Honestly, this is Eggman as his absolute best when he's able to be a completely credible villain while also allowed to be the butt of jokes. He's an absent-minded maniac sometimes and has no chill, but you just look at everything he creates and how dangerous he is and he's very obviously a super credible threat. I'm not going to go into all of these games because this is a lot and I don't think any of these plots stand out more than others. They're all varying degrees of "fine" to "good" but the strength here is that Eggman is a constant driving force.

He's just such an iconic villain because he can be literally everything you need a villain to be. He'll never, ever seem incompetent or like a total fool. He'll always be a threat. And it doesn't matter how many times Sonic beats him because he has to freaking WORK to get the win in the end. They never once make Eggman look like a complete dope.

And because of it, no matter how bad a game may be. Even when we're in the absolute bummers of Sonic 2006, Shadow the Hedgehog, some crappy crossover game, whatever you want... Eggman is usually the best part of it. His personality is always on point. His plans are awesome. His machines are just amazing and always look imposing and it's a triumph to beat them. And he's just a villain you can't ever get tired of. This series is infinitely stronger entirely because of him.

Oh and credit to every voice actor for Dr. Eggman. Deem Bristow and Mike Pollock brought so much life to this character and you can tell they absolutely delighted in it. Mike Pollock is so good at it that while they'll replace literally the entire cast, they keep him every single time because he's so good at it.

I'm not even bringing up how he's usually the best part of any spin-off creation like TV shows, movies, comics, etc. too. Because they have such a great base to work off of.

Rank: S

https://youtu.be/CvERHiTfx9w