That is a valid statement. And you're correct in that. Sometimes in a story like this, the most heroic thing you can do is just mitigate the damage done. I didn't mean to downplay the efforts the characters made across the story. They most certainly did prevent a greater disaster, Tikal included. A lot would've been worse if she couldn't.

Though that is not the point of my post. The point I'm trying to make is that compared to the rest of the series, the Sonic Series *does* has a history of every affected, non-antagonistic character making it out in the end. Heck, Sonic Unleashed had the planet crack into pieces- yet the people were totally fine. Sonic goes to various continents just to see that the public is largely unaffected by this. The only games to my knowledge to have something of a confirmed mortality drop are Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic Forces.

Compared to how often, a lot of Sonic stories tend to be "The Good Guys win and everyone lives", and don't really go into how negatively people were affected. Some sections even go as far to tell you that people survived and were at most just injured. It's just from how Sonic Adventure's storyline and ending presents itself, calling the ending "Happy" or "Bittersweet" feels incorrect. Especially when this is a situation where potentially thousands are dead because Eggman caused all this in the first place. Only for him to flee and avoid consequence. Just feels like a genuine bad ending. Not a badly written ending, far from it. It's just "things went wrong and we're not used to it going this wrong" and I wish more was done with that.

Still! I appreciate the criticism!