There's nothing wrong with friends being in a game celebrating Sonic's 25th Anniversary with a bunch of throwback stuff.
People are getting all ruffled about other characters being in the game, but it's not really that big of a deal as long as you don't have stupid stuff like cars, weapons, slow characters with telekinesis, fishing, etc. in the actual gameplay.
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Support Seifer Almasy (Final Fantasy VIII) for Character Battle IX!
http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/9342/banner3seifer.jpg