Continuing to forge its own path. Interestingly you even see this manifest with characters not serving the same role that they do in their home-console counterparts. Tails strangely goes from Sonic's sidekick to Sonic's very first damsel-in-distress. It's with this game that there is this established line that these handheld Sonic games are not conversions of their older brothers, but their own artistic statements. Is the number even needed anymore?