For all my grievances in support of Dr. Wily in the Death Battle! match, I will say that Robotnik got short changed as well. With the exception of "broken" Metal Sonic, the rest of Eggman's army was completely and utterly man-handled by Wily's side. It was downright disgraceful how easily the Badniks fell when they were matched against forces of the same "ranking". But is this really a fair representation of the strength of Robotnik's forces?
E-102 Gamma, one of Eggman's Strongest.
Unfortunately, also a traitor to Eggman.
Unfortunately, also a traitor to Eggman.
The truth of the matter is that the "squadron of champions" system use for this Death Battle! is heavily against Robotnik's favor. This is because his list of actually applicable robots number only a handful. This is not to say that Robotnik doesn't have or can't build intelligent independent agents, but it seems more likely to be a personality deficit of Robotnik to manage relationships with them. In his eccentricity, Robotnik eventually sours in the face of his self aware robots. This has lead to willing abandonment of some of his most powerful robots (E.G. Most of the E-100s' series), if they don't end up turning face against their creator first. And sadly, his most notable successes in terms of powerful self-aware intelligent machines actually have a pattern of defecting. Enjoy the list of Eggman's traitors:
Gemerl, another versatile
combat robot to turn on Robotnik
combat robot to turn on Robotnik
- Metal Sonic (Sonic Heroes): Decided his master hindered his ability to accomplish his objective.
- E-102 Gamma (Sonic Adventures): Decides his master is evil and defects in favor of loyalty to his brother robots.
- Heavy (Knuckles' Chaotix): Wanted freedom from Robotnik, so in turn helped Knuckles thwart his creator.
- Bomb (Knuckles' Chaotix): Defected to KnuzAckle's team with ill will towards Robotnik.
- E-123 Omega (Sonic Heroes): Wants revenge against Robotnik for the disrespectful job of guard duty assigned to him.
- Gemerl (Sonic Advance 3): Found friendship with Sonic et. al. after defeat.
So what does that leave Ben over at Screwattack to do for Robotnik's squadron material? We have Scratch and Grounder, two combatants that originate from regular "one hit wonders" stage enemies. Two of the combatants ("Silver Sonic" and Mecha Sonic) are arguably the same robot before and after upgrades, and ultimately outdated prototypes for Metal Sonic. And the Shadow Androids, which are at best "mini bosses" leveled and would not stand much of a chance on their own. It does seem like scraping the bottom of the barrel if these are a bulk of the selection for "Champions".
And to make it worse, what of Robotnik's forces were left on the field were also "nerfed" by the animation. I had already mentioned E-101 Beta's scaled down to 1/4 size and Mecha Sonic's more likely higher effectiveness against Pharaohman. EggRobo, the only vehicle driving member of the team, sadly was only given a very basic bomber type egg mobile to ride, when there are in fact plenty of more deadly and versatile vehicles for him to control.
The Formidable Egg Dragoon.
But segwaying perfectly back from that tangent, solving EggRobo's problem is in fact the lead for a far better way for Robotnik to show his mechanical might. Rather than a focus on champion soldiers, Eggman side should of focused on his variety of large robotic vehicles. This theory is based on the general pattern in the Sonic series of games where a mecha piloting Dr. Robotnik is the regular reoccurring area boss. From this, it's easy to make the jump to assume that Robotnik would invest his best engineering for drivable mecha. His side should be dominated by machines such as the Egg Dragoon, the Nega Wisp Armor, the Egg Emperor, and the Egg Wryvern. Of course this does bring up the issue of getting pilots for all of them. But this is easily rectified due to the existence of Metal Sonic, Mecha Sonic, EggRobo, all three having been seen in the pilot seat before.
Though for all this contemplation, it's really a moot point. The reality is that even if this was considered for the Death Battle!, it wouldn't have been feasible from an animation standpoint. Sprites for all these machines simply do not exist. Thus a sprite animation battle show for this would be a crazy endeavor with all the sprites that have to be created, especially given the complexity of all of these machines. I guess it's a weird consolation that Metal Sonic was allowed to be godly in compensation for all of these shortfalls.
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