Blaze the Cat

Blaze the Cat (ブレイズ・ザ・キャット Bureizu za Kyatto^?) is a fictional, anthropomorphic cat from the Sonic the thumb|link=File:Blaze_the_Cat.pngHedgehog series, created by Sonic Team and owned by Sega. She made her first appearance in the Nintendo DS video game, Sonic Rush.

Blaze is a princess from an alternate reality, the Sol Dimension, and the guardian of the Sol Emeralds, a role similar to that held by Knuckles (protecting the Master Emerald) and Sonic the Hedgehog. She is sometimes referred to as a queen; She is called "Queen Blaze the Cat" on the official Sega of America Sonic mini site, Sonic Central, as well as the former Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) game website. However, in Japanese, her title is 皇女 (Kōjo^?), which translates as "imperial princess," (she is also called princess in Sonic Rush Adventure).

Personality

Blaze is often described to be elegant and normally speaks in a formal lady-like tone since she is a princess. She is likewise very serious and devoted to her duties as a regent over her people and guardian of the Sol Emeralds. However, her duties and her self-imposed strict discipline have made her rather anti-social and withdrawn, causing her to be wary and curt towards people she does not know. She appears at most times to be calm, solemn and level headed, because she conceals her true feelings. In addition, Blaze held her own personal dislike of her pyrokinesis, which caused her to develop a habit of trying to do tasks on her own, becoming defensive and even aggressive when help was offered. Her selfishness towards her duty caused her to berate Sonic despite him offering help, which eventually led to a battle between the two. Towards the end of their fight, she claimed that her flames were a curse, which was why she must defeat both Eggman and Eggman Nega all by herself. She later on learns to accept her powers from Sonic's advice, and comes to see her flames as a blessing.

Blaze is quite mannerful because of her royal upbringing. She typically maintains a relatively quiet and formal air among others and is described to be elegant. Her style of fighting is very similar to ballet which is an addition to her graceful nature. Her body language is also noticebly less casual than most characters, in Sonic Generations she speaks formally unlike most characters, and stands straight and tight rather than standing relaxed. Her speech also seems to be different, instead of saying "Thanks Sonic!" (something which most characters say after being freed by Sonic) she says, "I am grateful for your aid." Blaze has also shown to be polite at times since she is a princess. For example, when she passes a rival in Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity, she says "Sorry..." in a polite tone. However in Sonic Free Riders, strangely the line changed into a rather rude, "Step aside!".

Due to the isolated lifestyle that had dominated the most of her life, Blaze is often lacking in social skills, often finding it hard to open up to and talk to people, and comes off as shy. She is also very protective, initially suspecting anyone who even looked at the Sol Emeralds the wrong way. Blaze's devotion to protection of the Sol Emeralds, however, is always motivated by her own genuine concern for the safety of others and their well-being. Blaze is very focused when it comes to her goals and can be quite stubborn once she has put her mind onto something, causing her to become rough, impatient and sometimes even aggressive to almost anyone who ends up getting in her way.

Throughout the course of Sonic Rush, Blaze gains much needed social development because of her interactions with others, particularly Sonic and Cream, causing her personality to become more amiable and gentle towards others. Most of all, however, she came to understand the true meaning of friendship, making her more willing to accept help from others and to rely on them than before. While she still claims to prefer handling things on her own, she is nonetheless grateful for her friends' aid, such as in Sonic Generations where Sonic saved her from her frozen state in the White Space. 

As seen in Sonic Rush Adventure, Blaze is very honest and almost blunt when dealing with constant annoyances such as Marine the Raccoon, at one point outright telling Marine that she is a nuisance. She also had a tendency of judging others poorly and sees less worth in others in Sonic Rush, making her somewhat overconfident when presented with a threat.

In Sonic Generations Blaze seems to developed her social skills somewhat, given that she was willing to participate in a social event for the sake of her relationship to her friends. At the beginning of Sonic's birthday party she is shown to be acting uncomfortable and shy after wishing Sonic on his birthday with the rest, but eventually became more open and relaxed in front of others for the rest of the party.

Powers and Abilities

Pyrokenisis

Blaze’s main special ability is her pyrokinesis, the ability to create and control fire in any way she desires. Since she has possessed this power at birth, Blaze is very adept at using it for various purposes. She can conjure up flames at any place on or all over her body, allowing her to form a cloak of flames, increase her attack power, burn her opponent, improve her movements or just melt frozen creatures/objects and can do so without harming them. She can even raise large columns of  fire from the ground and launch herself as burning meteor. Beside offense, she can also use her pyrokinesis defensively by conjuring up fields of fire around her to protect her from damage. She can even make herself invulnerable to certain types of flames, such as those found in the environment or handle it delicate enough to creates small flames or embers in the palm of her hands.

Blaze's pyrokinesis seems to be unaffected by water, as she is able to create flames even when submerged in water, although this could be a game mechanic. Her pyrokinesis is not only limited to the flames she herself can generate, but also the fire found in the environment, allowing her to extinguish flames or bend them to her liking.

Physical Abilities

Like many other characters in the Sonic series, Blaze is able to run at super speed, though she is still not as fast as Sonic or Shadow. She is still remarkably fast and possesses high speed movements and fast reflexes, something which even Sonic has acknowledged.

In line with her graceful nature, Blaze is also a quick thinker with lucid movements. She is incredibly acrobatic and nimble, and possesses impressive dexterity. She is shown being able to jump very long distances, while landing perfectly safely, and can while airborne perform several tricks with precise movements. On the ground she is also able to perform tricks such as top spins, axels and axel jumps.

As the guardian of the Sol Emeralds, Blaze has a deep, personal connection to the emeralds, Like Knuckles, she can sense the Sol Emeralds energies, and can as well sense disruptions in the world she resides in. Before she understood the meaning of friendship from Sonic and his friends, Blaze was unable to harness the power of the Sol Emeralds, but after embracing the friendships she had forged, she gained the ability to tap into the Sol Emeralds' energies and use them to empower her. While fighting the Egg wizard in the deep core Blaze and Sonic combined their power using Chaos Energy and Sol Energry one at a time to match the power of the improved Egg Wizard

Blaze is also shown to have much knowledge on the various aspects of her world, such as its history, ancient languages and legends, and knows much about the various aspects of the Jeweled Scepter.

Combat Skills

Being the guardian of the Sol Emeralds, Blaze is a very skilled fighter. She is arguably one of the strongest female characters in the Sonic the Hedgehog series, being the only female so far who has been able to tie with Sonic in combat. Fiercely dedicated to her duty, Blaze is as intense in battle as she is graceful, and an equally skilled combatant.

Fighting Style

Most of Blaze's combat moves focuses on using graceful and delicate movements, similar to ballet moves, to strike precise and hard blows at her opponents. When attacking, she tends to use her feet when launching physical blows. Most of Blaze fighting moves comes from her pyrokinesis and relies heavily on their execution. By using her pyrokinesis in conjuring with her moves, Blaze can create unique and dynamic attacks that deals destructive damage on her targets, making her a fierce force to be reckoned with in combat.

Techniques and Moves

Blaze’s primary offensive maneuver involves turning herself into a tornado of fire by spinning around. Her techniques Burst Dash and Spinning Claw lets her charge fire and then launch her at full speed along the ground as a fiery tornado that destroy anything it collides with, similar to Sonic’s Spin Dash, but it does not keep its speed or goes faster. She can likewise perform an attack similar to the Homing Attack, called Fire Claw, where she quickly launches herself at the enemy and attacks them.

By using her pyrokinesis, Blaze can make her able to briefly hover in the air with her Burst Hover by igniting fire under her feet. By also enveloping herself in fire, she can increase her speed further by launching herself as a large fire projectile, called the Fire Boost, which destroys any opponent caught in her path, similar to the Sonic Boost.

Also, her Axel Jump and Axel Tornado allows her to jump into the air and twirling, making herself a fiery tornado that damages anything she makes contact with.

Miscellaneous Skills

In Sonic Rush, she appears in front of Sonic in a burst of flame to take the blue Sol Emerald. This could mean that she can teleport through her flames, or by a way that may or may not be related to Chaos Control (or a form similar to Chaos Control possessed by the Sol Emeralds).

Although it has never been officially confirmed, Blaze is able to perform Chaos Control with at least two Chaos Emeralds, as she used them to transport herself to another dimension along with Iblis at the end of Silver’s story in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006).

In some instances Blaze is shown being able to levitate in the air. Such cases are seen in her battle against Sonic in Sonic Rush and in her mission with Classic Sonic on Planet Wisp in Sonic Generations.

Burning Transformation

Initially, Blaze was unaware of the Sol Emeralds' power, but after realizing the importance of friendship and allowing herself to open up to people, Sonic taught her how to use the ability and transform into Burning Blaze. During this transformation, Blaze is granted the power of flight, increased strength and speed, invincibility and her fire powers are greatly amplified, as she can summon and throw fireballs, which she is incapable of during normal gameplay.

Weaknesses

Blaze has acrophobia, a fear of heights. In Sonic Rush she admits that she was kind of afraid of heights. In Sonic Rush Adventure she showed signs of being afraid of heights (as she seems afraid to go to Sky Babylon) and tried hiding her fear. Though she doesn't say it herself, Gardon says that she's terrified of heights.

Blaze has a short-temper which leads her to making harsh and bad decisions. Her rough decisions were also noticed by Sonic in Sonic Rush Adventure where she completely lost her temper whilst threatening the 'Eggmen', Sonic warns her telling her not make harsh decisions and as a princess she should be keeping a "level-head" thus reminding her that she needs to look after her people, which Blaze slowly and regretfully realized.

Finally, Blaze also had a tendency of getting over-confident in threatening people to whom she thinks 'deserves' it, when they actually do not, and Sonic is shown to disagree with it. This was shown several times in Sonic Rush Adventure, a few times in Sonic Rush and finally once in Sonic Colors (DS version only).

Blaze has a tendency of judging others poorly and seeing less value in others. Examples are in Sonic Rush when she expected no-one to know that their worlds are in great danger but was proven wrong when Sonic and Tails were also aware. Her poor judgment of others led her to have a fight with Sonic and misjudge Cream until she realized that how helpful she was.

Blaze bluntness causes her to say harsh things. In Sonic Rush Adventure she tried to leave Marine behind in missions due to Marine risky behavior and even went far enough to hurt her feelings by calling her a 'nuisance' to keep her from coming along on a dangerous mission to pirate island.

Friends

• Cream the Rabbit (Best Friend)
• Sonic the Hedgehog (Best Friend and Partner in Combat)
• Knuckles the Echidna
• Amy Rose
• Silver the Hedgehog (Close friend, Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) only)
• Miles "Tails" Prower
• Marine the Raccoon
• Gardon
• Princess Marshalia

Rivals

• Sonic the Hedgehog (Formerly)
• Princess Daisy (Mario And Sonic series only)

Enemies

• Eggman Nega (Arch-enemy)
• Iblis (Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) only)
• Doctor Eggman

Gallery

Sonic Rush

Sonic Channel