Where's that mix between chao races and Sonic 4? Chao races were long gone by the time Sonic 4 appeared, and nothing in that game includes chao in any form, right? I can't remember any appearance of chao there, at least, and it wouldn't make sense anyway.
Ah, ok ,the comics themselves, not the games. Since he was asking questions about continuity, I didn't thought he would be referencing something outside the games.
White Park Zone, from Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II, is the setting of the "Chao Races and Badnik Bases" story.
It's very possible that this was in an early draft of the screenplay and was later revised. The line is there in the film almost verbatim, just without the mention of Mobius. It's very common for novelizations to be given the working draft in order to get the book out in time with the movie.
And that's fine. My issue is the overcomplexities SEGA are determined to cause. I don't know why we needed Two Worlds and Two Timelines in the first place after the game established one of each. Just one timeline, one world is more than enough: you want more classic games, just put them before Sonic Adventure, since Sonic had a break between the two eras. It's not rocket science, nor do you have to jump through loops instead of running around them...
Sonic has almost always worked on cartoon time anyway. The amount of time between Adventure and Forces is unknown and ultimately unimportant. It has zero bearing on the world. So yeah, you can cram an infinite amount of classic games in the time between Mania and Adventure. The split timeline thing feels like SEGA's attempt to explain 1) why Modern Sonic doesn't remember the events of Generations and Forces from Classic Sonic's perspective, 2) why we don't see characters like Mighty, Ray and the Hooligans in the modern setting and 3) why classic and modern versions of characters look so different, all of which can be rather easily handwaved with time travel shenanigans, "classic world" characters simply being off on their own adventures and it's just a stylistic presentation of two designs of Sonic representing their respective eras, don't take it too seriously. I just really want Mighty and Ray back in the main comics continuity, you guys...
Easy answer to this is time just got eaten, and they're restoring it and their own memories, including the memories of this event. Which is immensely dumb. Just give us the armadillo, SEGA.. Or, again, them just being younger, as implied with Sonic Adventure, Sonic Heroes and confirmed in Sonic Generations.
I don't dislike the timeline split. It's a franchise with several games messing with time travel. And I think a single timeline now would cause some causality troubles. Classic Eggman should try to do things differently after Generations, since he knows his future self would lose every time, and Modern Sonic (and Modern Eggman) should know about the Phantom Ruby during Forces, since they knew it in Mania.
I posted quite a bit earlier in the thread about the magic bullet that is Steven Moffat’s solution for handling time travel and memories, but I’ll just post the clip so you can see it in effect. Spoilers for an almost ten year old(!) Doctor Who anniversary special which you’ve probably already seen if you care about the show. This scene packages the whole ordeal so nicely. The three Doctors met and even changed their own personal history, but the simple hand wave of “time stream screwed, memories broke” not only sidesteps the question of “why don’t they remember it?” but also keeps characterisation completely intact. I wholeheartedly believe Sonic should go back to being a single timeline and just rip off this plot device whenever they want to have classic and modern Sonic cross paths for whatever reason.
I think the only way a linear timeline would have worked is if they had made the characters forget the events of Generations after the Sonics defeated the Time Eater and restored the timeline. But Forces made it clear they still remembered it, so... Oh, and there was also the Gens epilogue with the Eggmen. If the timeline was fully restored, shouldn't they have been back at their respective times, rather than remaining stuck in White Space?
Yeah, this was what Ian was going for as well, as we discussed then as well. Do we need to talk plotholes with Sonic Forces again? I'm unsure of the point. Actually, would this not mean Modern Robotnik gets stuck in the altered timeline if he's trapped in the White Space and eventually escapes with Classic Robotnik?
As Ian said, the two-worlds concept is much easier to get rid of, because the games never talked about it (and even suggested the one-world back in the day). The split timeline is harder to get rid of, because of Forces. Forces was also the sole reason for the two-worlds concept to be supported, because there were no humans, but Ian said there is going to be a one-world explanation for their absence.
Honestly, again, just retool it so Classic Sonic is a Phantom, and Robotnik and Tails were referring to either the past world or mistaken in their assessment. Or both.
I personally prefer split-timeline because I don't see the Chaotix in Heroes being the same version of the Chaotix seen in the 32X game. I've seen the arguments for why they are the same characters and they just don't work for me personally. There are lots of other little things too like Sonic the Fighters having the Death Egg II and Sonic 4 having the Death Egg mk.II. If they do retcon the split later and say Sonic Mania takes place before Adventure then fine, I'll live with it. But I am just saying why I am not oppose to split-timeline.
I mean, even with the split, they'd still be the same characters, just one series of events didn't occur for the other. This one, fair: it can be the Death Egg II and the Death Egg Mk. II were alternate timeline versions of the other.
