The announcement of Sonic Superstars was incredibly exciting for me as a Sonic fan. Classic gameplay that takes notes from Mania, multiple playable characters, robust multiplayer, and the return of Fang the Sniper? Might turn out to be the best mainline Sonic game since Mania (I haven't played Frontiers yet, will probably write a post on it when I do lol).

... but something peculiar that stuck out to me is that Fang the Sniper's name was changed to "Fang the Hunter". Now, out of all Sonic characters, Fang has probably had the most confusion in regards to his name and species. In Japan they had considered using "Nack" as his name, but they thought it sounded too similar to how Knuckles's name is pronounced so they opted for "Fang" instead. The west opted for "Nack" since it was seen as distinct enough from Knuckles.

Similarly, the character was originally designed to be a jerboa, but Japan made him a jerboa-wolf hybrid to make him seem cooler, while the west made Fang (or rather Nack) a weasel, probably because they were afraid people wouldn't know what a jerboa is. (The 90s localization of the Sonic franchise would be an interesting post for another day).

With Fang's big return to the spotlight, SEGA has finally decided to standardize the little gremlin. His name is in fact Fang, and his species is in fact a jerboa. (Nixing the hybrid idea was probably done for the sake of coherent worldbuildling and lore, which I'm on board with).

But I'm admittedly bothered by the fact that they changed his title from "Sniper" to "Hunter". "Sniper" not only sounds cooler, but it clearly conveys a foundational aspect of his character, his proficiency with firearms, which further ties into his cowboy / bounty hunter theme. "Hunter" is much less specific than "Sniper" or "bounty hunter", and when the term is used by itself, people are apt to think of the kind of hunter who sneaks through the woods hunting wild game, which is absolutely not who Fang is as a character.

The idea of a "bounty hunter" is more strongly tied to the concept of a cowboy-type gun-for-hire that's in it for profit, which is more accurate to who Fang is as a character, so why didn't they use "Bounty Hunter" as a title? My guess is that they want to keep character titles as concise as possible. "Fang the Bounty Hunter" doesn't sound quite as snappy as "Fang the Hunter", though I'd still prefer the former.

That aside, why did they change his name in the first place? My guess is that they did it to avoid a direct association with firearms, as there's often been a stigma surrounding the use of firearms in kids media. It's been an issue that's affected Fang for some time now. He was initially going to have a pistol that more closely resembled an actual firearm, but it was switched out for his famous cork gun as seen in Sonic the Fighters. Similarly, Fang's guns in the Archie Comic series are often referred to as "blasters", and Fang seems to opt for the word "blast" rather than "shoot" to describe his actions.

And when reading the recently released preview of the Sonic Superstars prequel comic, Fang's Big Break, it becomes more apparent that his name was changed to "Hunter" for those reasons, due to how forced its use comes across as. First thing they do is address the changes in his name (which is understandable), even mentioning Fang the Sniper, and explaining that Fang has numerous aliases due to being an outlaw (which makes sense). It sticks out however because the other two names, Nack the Weasel and Jet the Jerboa, are significantly different from Fang the Hunter, while Fang the Sniper and Fang the Hunter are only different in title.

That alone doesn't come off as too forced, but what does is the use of the term "hunt" and "hunter" by Eggman and Fang in references to Fang's profession. Eggman tells Fang "I'm paying you to hunt, not talk!", and "Gee, I'd better hire some expert hunter to scout around and find out...", and then Fang saying "Alright then. Let the hunt begin!".

There's numerous issues with this. One, it makes no sense for the characters to use this term in this context. Fang was hired for a specific job, but they insist on using the term "hunt" and "hunter", which does not seem to apply to the situation at hand. The terms may be generic in theory, but they have a strong association with the idea of someone tracking and killing wild game in the woods. Fang wasn't hired to hunt, and he isn't a hunter. Fang is a bounty hunter and a treasure hunter, but he isn't a hunter.

Not to mention that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for Eggman to hire Fang for this specific task in the first place. Scouting out an island is something that Eggman would have his robots do. He'd only bring Fang in if he wanted help gathering a specific set of items (like the Chaos Emeralds) or wanted one more wrench to throw at Sonic and his friends. It seems like they're trying to give Fang a generic occupation of "hunting" things without touching on the idea that he's a "bounty hunter". It wouldn't have been hard to have Eggman refer to Fang as a bounty hunter either.

And while it would make sense for Fang to use the term "hunt" in certain contexts, his use of it in the comic's context comes off as forced. Eggman's use comes off as even more forced, since "hunt" doesn't seem to accurately describe what Fang was hired for (unless one boils it down to its most basic meaning of looking for something, but you can't use the term by itself for that purpose because most people ascribe the specific activity of game hunting to it).

So... what's the solution to this? Ideally, I'd want them to keep using the name "Fang the Sniper", but short of that, I'd much rather they use a different term than "Hunter". Maybe something like "Fang the Maverick" or "Fang the Renegade" or "Fang the Outlaw" or even "Fang the Jerboa". If it was one of those I'd probably still be mildy disappointed, but at least not nearly as aggravated by how forced "Hunter" is.

What's ultimately the most concerning about the name change is that, if it was done to avoid an assocation with firearms, how is this going to affect Fang's character and the overall franchise going forward? Are we just going to pretend that GUN doesn't use realisitic firearms, or that Shadow, Eggman, Tails, Gamma, and Omega never used guns? Is every instance of a gun going to be replaced by a laser blaster? Is Fang's use of his cork gun going to be downplayed (I noticed that it wasn't at all present in Superstars promotional material until the prequel comic)? What about Shadow's origin story where Maria is literally shot by a GUN soldier?

*sigh* ... writing an essay on a simple name change for a character almost feels like writing an essay on why changing the color of Sonic's eyes or arms will doom the franchise (a hyperbole, but yes, there was actual discourse on those). Even so, I think that the case of Fang's name change is a symptom of SEGA's larger attitude towards the Sonic franchise as a whole, an attitude that will ultimately stifle the franchise's potential, but that's a blog post for another day.

On a more positive note, I'm glad that Fang's back. Here's hoping that the other Hooligans can make a comeback too!