Tricky proposal in my opinion. But I'm not keeping to my word about proposing Wander anymore, for this is what I'm going to do while I wait for Emeraldblade95 to let me propose Wander. No offense to them, though, and this is also 50% out of wanting to see what people would say about her, because she is honestly harder to propose than Wander is, because she may have potential problems with admirable standards.
What's The Work?
Sonic the Hedgehog is a video game franchise about a blue hedgehog named Sonic, who, alongside his friends, fights Dr. Eggman and stops his schemes to take over the world. They fight other villains too. And Sonic Superstars is about Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and now Amy (the first time Classic Amy has been an action character outside of spin-offs and non-canon what-ifs (cough cough Sonic Origins, which is why I'm not counting that)) trying to take down Dr. Eggman, who teamed up with Fang and Trip to aid him in his plans.
Who Is She?
Trip the Sungazer is the deuteragonist of Sonic Superstars. Originally she teamed up with the villains before getting redeemed (technically, this is more of a Knuckles case where the character was never a villain, they were just tricked by Eggman) by Amy in Lagoon City. After Sonic and friends defeat Eggman, Trip ventures off to defeat Eggman (or so she thought he was the Big Bad of her story, it was actually Fang or the Egg Robo). Then, after the Black Dragon is released, Sonic weakens it and Trip seals him.
Admirable Standards
This is a BIG problem for Trip. But hear me out. The Black Dragon is a bog-standard villain who just tries to cause chaos, and sealing it may not seem that admirable. However, I feel she passes the admirable standards for ONE reason. Sure, she does have some pretty hefty resources, being the only character to have an actually unique Super Form (not even Sonic, Shadow, or Silver count, despite their super form being more unique than others, because their quills move and they change color, that's all) that lets her turn into a dragon.
However, the reason she passes is the fact that this is her only appearance so far, and yet she was able to seal the Black Dragon, which is impressive for a character with little screentime, since you don't see characters with minimal screentime defeat an Eldritch Abomination. This is mostly her doing, even though Super Sonic fought it, because all he did was weaken it so that she could do the deed and seal it. Sure, there are implications that other sungazers have done that, and IDW confirms that Trip lives in a society with other sungazers and her armor is actually a ceremonial armor, implying that those sungazers did seal the Black Dragon. The thing is that a) that's Fridge Brilliance for them and b) Trip would still pass even if they actually sealed the Black Dragon together, since she sealed it with help from only four other characters, and even then, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy didn't need to lend much of a hand to Super Sonic other than give him some rings to help him weaken the Black Dragon. Additionally, Amy was helped by Trip and a giant Flicky in giving Super Rings, so bonus points there, Trip was the MVP in defeating the Black Dragon, an Eldritch Abomination.
How about we compare her to Shadow, though? Because Shadow's first appearance has him warp the Finalhazard and the ARK into orbit. No, she stands out even with the existence of that black hedgehog, because the only way to finally defeat the Black Dragon was to seal it, but for the Finalhazard, it had to be warped back into orbit. As a result, Trip passes, as she doesn't share sealing the Black Dragon with anyone else, while Shadow shares saving the world from the Biolizard with Sonic. It would take Shadow three games to finally do something that passes the admirable standards by himself (that game being his self-titled game in 2005). Trip, though? Only Superstars. And about resources, no, this is not an unfair comparison, Trip obviously had less screentime than Shadow, which makes her stand out, but in terms of power, Trip could be compared to him. And we don't even need to talk about Silver, his first appearance has him contribute 30% to defeating Solaris, while Super Shadow has the other 30%, and Super Sonic, being the one to share his Chaos Energy with the other two hedgehogs, contributing 40%. And besides, I think Silver actually does have way more resources than Trip. And as for Blaze, she has more resources, being the princess of the Sol Empire and sharing her two most admirable acts in the Rush games with Sonic. Plus, Blaze was always helped by Silver in Sonic 06 and doesn't participate in the final fight against Solaris.
Mitigating Factors?
This one is easy. Trip has no corrupting factors after she was redeemed (technically) by Amy. No lethality, and due to the lack of dialogue in the Classic Sonic games, Trip never shows jerkish moments. I can't even call Trip a redeemed villain, because like Knuckles, she was tricked into helping Eggman, and even then, Knuckles showed a bit of sadism (or mischief) when putting Sonic and Tails through the wringer and actually was a bit effective. Trip doesn't even affect the levels at all due to being pretty incompetent and overall, the only level she appears in before Lagoon City is Speed Jungle, where she tries setting up traps but is extremely ineffective. Oh, and what's that about being incompetent? That's only while doing Eggman's bidding, and becomes an actually competent hero after being redeemed by Amy, even one-shotting Fang's mech in Golden Capital in her super form.
Final Verdict
A bit unsure. Weak yes, though. Overall, for her first appearance, she shows potential to be a great heroine, being the MVP of the final fight against an Eldritch Abomination, unlike other characters that have similar resources (Shadow, Silver, and Blaze), even though that Eldritch Abomination just threatens to cause chaos and is pretty standard even when compared to the rest of the franchise's powerful villains (e.g., Finalhazard, Iblis/Solaris, and Egg Wizard). That's also remedied by the fact that she had only one appearance, and that was in the Classic Sonic series, which was before Sonic met more powerful foes. I didn't do the best job in this proposal, but oh, well, just tell me what you think.