Knuckles

Knuckles

About to tell bad news to Luigi
Vital statistics
Position	Ally
Age	16
Physical attributes
Height	110 cm (3' 7")
Weight	40 kg (88 lb)
Alias/Nicknames	Bad news Knuckles Knucklehead
Allies:	Sonic Mario
Enemies:	Tatanga Luigi[Sometimes] Dr.Eggman
Family:	None
Likes:	Grapes and other fruit Digging holes Peace and quiet His friends Fighting and training Relaxing Being left alone Guarding the Master Emerald Telling bad news
Dislikes	Strong sunshine Being tricked, betrayed, or otherwise taken advantage of Fighting/hurting innocent people Anyone who comes after the Master Emerald
Debut	Unknown

Knuckles the Echidna (ナックルズ・ザ・エキドゥナ Nakkurusu za Ekiduna^?) is a fictional character from the Sonic the Hedgehog series. a powerful ancient relic which is his solemn duty to protect from anyone who wants to abuse it. He is also the sole remaining descendant of the Knuckles clam and last of the echidnas on earth. His dominant traits are his superhuman strength, and the two spike-like knuckles on each of his hands, from which his name is derived from, which he can use to dig with and climb up walls with ease. He can also trap the wind under his dreadlocks to glide through the air.

A loner by nature, Knuckles is independent, headstrong and serious, yet gullible and short-tempered to a fault. He is fully devoted to his duty, spending most of his time on Angel island protecting the Master Emerald, and rarely cares for anything that is not important. When his friends and others are in need of his help, however, Knuckles can always be relied on being willing to leave his post and prove himself a true and good-hearted hero. He is also one of Sonic's oldest friends and rivals.

Character

Knuckles was originally created and designed by Takashi Thomas Yuda. During the conception of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, the development team wanted to create a new rival for Sonic. The final design of Knuckles was the result of dozens of possible designs inspired by numerous different animals. The emphasis of the character was to break walls. Knuckles' shoes are based on the colors of the Jamaican flag, and his appearance is overall Jamaican. In fact, he was originally meant to speak with a Jamaican accent.

Physical Description

White gloves with pointed knuckles
Red and yellow shoes with green cuffs and gray sextuple-bolted plates on top

Personality

Strength

Knuckles' trademark ability is his immense amounts of superhuman physical strength, so vast that he can shatter boulders, punch holes through thick steel and lift objects several times his own size and weight. Knuckles' strength is believed to be equal to Sonic's mundane speed (Mach 1), which would make him able to lift and press 100 metric tons, making him physically stronger than all other characters in the series. Knuckles' strength seems to lie in his upper body, particularly in his arms and fists, the later of which are noted to be as hard as rock.

Another testament to his brute strength is that he can punch or throw objects through the air with such force that he can ignite fire, and create fissures, tremors and even small volcanic eruptions by punching the ground. He can even strike with such force that it causes the friction in the air to create explosions with enormous power.

Physical Abilities

Like most other character in the series, Knuckles is quite fast on his feet, being able to run at superhuman speeds, even being able to keep up with Sonic and Tails' running speed. However, he is not quite as fast as Sonic or Tails at their maximum speed and he runs fairly slow by comparison. Additionally, his high speed does not seem to extend to his upper body, and he has been noted to have slow movements in combat. Over time, Knuckles began to lose some of his speed, but also gain a lot more power.

Knuckles also possess near-maximized physical endurance to match his strength, and is capable of taking as much major punishment as he is able to deal out, even being able to survive a bomb exploding right in front of him. Knuckles has as well enough stamina to hold out against an army of robots without rest.

Unlike Sonic, Knuckles is a very experienced swimmer, due to his interest of being a treasure hunter, and can swim to incredible depths and with both great speed and skill.

Knuckles is also shown to have sharp reflexes and acrobatic skills, being able to do special tricks and movements while in mid-air, though he is not nearly as acrobatic as Sonic or Shadow are, nor can he jump very high. To make up for his lack of agility, however, Knuckles possesses a wide range of movement abilities. By stretching his arms and legs outwards while airborne, Knuckles can catch the wind under his dreadlock-like spines, allowing him to glide long distances through mid-air and can do so with great control over his movements. Also, by using the spikes on his fists, Knuckles can attach himself to walls and climb up any kind of surface with ease, no matter the material.

Knuckles is also a proficient burrower, able to dig into any wall or floor and excels at tunneling through subterranean regions with great speed.

Knuckles has the uncanny ability to sense the chaos emerald of the Chaos Emeralds from a distance, or objects similar to them, such as the sol emerald. Like Sonic and Shadow, Knuckles can also harness the power of the Chaos Emeralds to empower himself.

Combat Skills

Being the guardian of the Master Emerald, Knuckles is a very powerful fighter. He is skilled in a number of martial arts, focusing on hand-to-hand combat, and is capable of taking on even the most powerful of opponents without rest, such as when he was able to take down several of the military trained nocturnus clan soldiers. Even more so, he has been able to fight Sonic the hedgehog to a standstill on several occasions. Also, in Sonic The Chronicles: The dark brotherhood, Tails noted that anyone to beat Knuckles in a fight must be very powerful, a testament of his fighting abilities.

Fighting Style

When in battle, Knuckles makes most use of his powerful arms and fists to take on his foes, with his specialty lying in punching moves where he uses his spiked fists to their fullest (there are some cases where it resembles a form of boxing). In terms of fighting style, Knuckles' focuses specially on power, using strong and powerful punches, such as powerpacked jabs or piercing uppercuts, to deal damaging blows to his opponents. Once he catches an opponent in his combos, he keep them trapped by keeping up his strikes, not allowing his opponents a chance to counterattack. For stronger strikes, Knuckles tend to build up momentum with his fists by swinging them around, before hitting his opponent with full force. In his major eruption move in Sonic Battle, Knuckles takes advantage of his burrowing abilities, hiding underground and hitting opponents with an uppercut as he leaps out when his opponent least expects it.

Despite being a powerhouse in close combat, as stated by Sonic, most of Knuckles' fighting moves are slow and easy to read, making Knuckles more vulnerable to those who give themselves time to read his moves.

Gallery

Triva

According to the Sonic 3 manual, Knuckles' favorite food is grapes. This is referenced many times in the games.
- In Sonic Generations, once Sky Sanctuary and Knuckles are restored, grapes can be seen growing on a tree behind Knuckles. This is an Easter Egg for Knuckles as grapes are his favorite food.
Strangely, in Sonic 3, Sonic & Knuckles, and Sonic 3 & Knuckles, the cutscene Knuckles is slightly pinker than the playable Knuckles. This is due to the palettes conflicting with the HUD items, the playable Knuckles was able to be perfected so this would not happen.
Knuckles has been tricked six times all together in the TV shows he stars in. Twice in Sonic Underground, and four times in Sonic X.
In Sonic 3 & Knuckles, finishing the game with only the Chaos Emeralds leaves a picture of the character's Super State on the Game Select screen. If the game is completed with Knuckles, an image of Super Knuckles is shown. In this image, he appears to be the same color as Knuckles, but with a bright purple aura.
In the Mega Drive games he is playable in, the letters K.T.E. (Knuckles the Echidna) are by his life icon, instead of "Knuckles" because the name display could not support more than than five letters, like on "Sonic" and "Tails".
Due to space limitations, in Sonic Drift 2, Knuckles' name is spelled "Knucles".
Knuckles' eye color has varied in the Sonic series, changing from blue to purple. In Sonic Battle, he is actually portrayed with both eye colors (blue for the fighting and purple for the cutscenes.)
He and Shadow were originally confirmed to appear in Sonic Unleashed, though neither were seen nor mentioned in the released game.
Knuckles' music was one of the reasons for the "Mild Lyrics" warning in Sonic Adventure 2. "Unknown From M.E.", "Deeper" and "Kick the Rock!" were among them.
Knuckles and Amy are the only 2 Sonic characters who appeared to have "aged"; Knuckles going from 15 to 16, and Amy going from 8 to 12.
Knuckles, along with Sonic and Dr. Eggman are the only characters whose Japanese voice actors have voiced their character in all Sonic games since Sonic Adventure.
Knuckles is the only playable character in Sonic '06 who does not finish a level/boss/town mission. Despite this, Knuckles does have a victory pose. This can be seen if the player glitches the levels to the end with Knuckles, the victory pose is almost identical to his Sonic Adventure 2 victory pose.
During multiplayer on Sonic Heroes, the white crest symbol on Knuckles' chest will disappear while he is taunting the opponent.
In Sonic Rivals and Sonic Rivals 2, the player can unlock an Eggman costume for Knuckles.
Knuckles' socks and shoes have been miscolored multiple times:
- In Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Sonic Triple Trouble and Sonic & Knuckles, Knuckles' socks were colored yellow during cutscenes as it interfered with the HUD palette. The playable version of Knuckles in has green socks however.
- In Sonic Drift 2 and Sonic 3D Blast, Knuckles' socks were colored blue.
- in Sonic R, Knuckles' shoes instead resemble Tails' white-tipped shoes, save for the metal tops and green socks. In still art however, his shoes are correctly colored, but the yellow stripe covers the back too.
In a lot of the 2D games, the crest on Knuckles' chest is colored peach. But in later games, it's colored white.
Knuckles is the only character in the franchise with purple eyes.
One of Knuckles' nicknames is "Knuckle," as stated in the Japanese manual of Sonic 3.
In Sonic Battle, Sonic once calls Knuckles a "spiky-headed mole". This is a pun on how echidnas and moles have the same burrowing prowess. It is also be a play on the Japanese term for echidna, which literally translates as "needle-mole".
He is also mistakenly referred to as a mole in the Sonic OVA movie.
If the player pauses at the right moment, in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 or Sonic and Knuckles when the sign is twirling in the air, the Knuckles color will be blue instead of red.
Super Sonic is invincible to any damage, but somehow Knuckles knocked the Chaos Emeralds out of him in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. This indicates that Knuckles is powerful enough to knock him out of Super State.
In Sonic 3 and Knuckles, if one glitches Knuckles into Sonic's part of Marble Garden Zone Act 2, Tails will still fly him up so he can defeat Dr. Robotnik. It is the only time this can be done without a cheat.
In Sonic Colors, Knuckles is the only one of the "Side Quest" characters to have five poses. All the others have four.
Knuckles' crescent-shaped symbol on his body was originally going to be the NIKE logo on him as part of a short-lived sponsorship deal.
Knuckles's gloves is a Rare Weapon in the SEGA game Phantasy Star Portable 2, it was names Sonic Knuckles, either referring to the strength or to the universe of Sonic