Yep, fun fact the reason Team Sonic Racing was made instead of another All-Stars game was because Sumo Digital wanted to make a canon Sonic story. "The reason we [dropped non-Sonic universe characters]," explains Sumo Digital's studio design director, Derek Littlewood, "was so we could dive into the Sonic universe in more depth, and tell a canon Sonic universe story, with our team adventure mode. That was very important for us. Source: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/why-team-sonic-racing-doesnt-have-team-fortress-sh/1100-6466556/
Honestly, as I said several pages back, it's better to start with the manual belonging to the region the game was made in. For Spinball that's the US, for 3D Blast that's the UK. Despite SoJ at the time being the holders of the original canon, it's STI who designed the game a certain way and wrote the story in the first place (very likely with Sonic Team's input). The same was the case with 3D Blast. This way you have original author intention to work from rather than adaptional changes between regions. That's why for the most part we work from the Japanese manuals, but Spinball, 3D Blast, & R are the odd exceptions. So we have a planet named Mobius and non-named emeralds. We know that Eggman has visited other planets before and has the means to get there like in Cosmo Fighter, Fighters, Colors. Who's to say Mobius isn't a planet in Sonic's solar system, like their version of Mars? It would explain why Eggman uses a rocket as a form of escape rather than a flying fortress. This is one thing from the Japanese manual that could still work, but the US manual doesn't specify it's sonic's planet one way or another. Likewise, we do know that Chaos Emeralds are capable of being replicated. Gerald created Chaos Drives 50 years prior but not actual emeralds, and Tails made the fake emerald in SA2 which follows this game. It's entirely possible, that on a planet without chaos emeralds, he created these inferior substitutes to help power the Veg-o-Fortress/reach Planet Mobius in the first place. Maybe Tails even got the idea for replicating emeralds after this incident but never really followed through on it until he was awarded the yellow chaos emerald. It can still work, and obviously, the bonus stages in that game aren't meant to be taken as story events so the cameos are likely just that, cameos.
I thought the Veg-o-Fortress in Origins was canonizing it is just another island on Earth instead of a different planet. Maybe we should ask Ian about it. And despite we have been talking about what Ian did or did not say about this new canon, I think we should understand he is not the sole responsible for that. Like in Origins itself, he pitched CD's placement after 3K but the idea was rejected. Maybe it's corporate choosing what they want and asking Ian to help making it possible.
If Eggman can make fake emeralds, that brings the question of why he doesn't do that in other games. Instead of bothering seeking the real Chaos Emeralds, he could go the Metarex route and mass-produce fake ones. Honestly, Spinball was made to fit the (loose) early western canon, in addition to being based on SatAM. Trying to fit it into the main canon is madness.
Eggman did start using Chaos Drives in 06 right? Did he make them himself or did he raid a G.U.N. Truck full of them?
Wasn't it Eggman raiding them from Soleanna or something? They were light cores in 06. The relation to Heroes Power cores, I don't even know.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Mega Drive). Developed by STI with SEGA of America, which manual are you using? When does he visit another planet in Sonic the Fighters? The most he has is the orbiting Death Egg II. Which, incidentally, I can't wait to see the justification for it and the Death Egg Mk. II. Indeed, but SEGA are, so expect a crappy new story that doesn't really do anything to connect the games.
And they told the most generic story you could tell with the worst way to tell a story, with slow text boxes that have 5 second transitions between the character's statements. That's nice. As much of a shit show as it could cause for anyone trying to cram every game together, I miss when someone could make that statement and actually deliver a unique story, like Sonic Chronicles. Light Cores are what the Iblis and Mephiles minions are given for a Chaos Drive equivalent. It'd be weird if these things made by GUN were being researched by Rimlight as if they were some super mysterious artifact.
The US Sonic Spinball manual says that the emeralds you collect are Chaos Emeralds: https://info.sonicretro.org/index.php?title=File:SonicSpinball_MD_US_manual.pdf&page=9 The game borrowed some elements from the cartoons, but doesn't really fit in their universes. The Badniks work like they do in the previous games, being robotic shells powered by small animals, rather than the roboticization seen in the TV series. There are also multiple Clucks in the game and multiple Scratches in a Bonus Stage. Robotnik's character design is inconsistent throughout the game's graphics, and takes some costume design bits from the cartoon, but in general looks more like a Greg Martin Robotnik than anything else.
In Cosmo Fighter Eggman was going after the animals who live in the cosmos (?). Maybe they were in other planets? That is sad.
Sorry, I was highlighting Sonic the Fighters and my whole thing with revcons carries over to posts. I'm asking when he visits other words in Sonic the Fighters specifically. Same with his size since he's giant in the Showdown but about Sonic's size as they fall. Could be perspective for the latter, though. At this point, you guys are probably better off waiting for whatever gets made up and shoved in.
I agree that it'd be better to await confirmations or rejections from Flynn and so. But, truth be told, these back-and-forths brought up relevant questions for Bumblekast. Even if things heat up here from time to time, it helps folks to set things straight. Little by little, some confusions got cleared and others came up. Gotta keep it up ^^
I think you ought to reassess what you're saying. In this thread you've presented yourself as someone who wants everything to have its place, and you've strongly resisted any movement on your points (i.e. Triple Trouble's placement). That's fine. You're entirely entitled to your perspective on that. However, I take issue with you now questioning other people wanting to include Spinball and saying that it's simply not doable, and that any attempt of officially doing this would be substandard, after you've already established that you vehemently detest anything that contradicts either your own personal interpretation of the series continuity or the Japanese manuals. Those manuals aren't some sacred, incontrovertible text that the series should adhere to. This series has been going 30 years and there have been a lot of games with oddities and contradictions. To include as much as possible into a cohesive tapestry, sacrifices will have to be made and things will need to be changed, so I really wish you'd stop preaching that the people behind all this are uncaring or incompetent (and by extension implying the same of those who like and accept the retcons) when they're quite the opposite. Those manuals are over 3 decades old and while they're definitely a good source from which to pull tidbits to flesh out the stories of the older stuff when bringing them into the modern age, there is minimal practical benefit to be gained from translating every bit of minutia from them. If you can't accept that for what it is in official terms, then you're only going to make yourself miserable, and others if you continue to be so contentious about it.
I wasn't saying it wasn't doable, I was agreeing it was madness. Last I checked, we're all a little mad here. Did you miss the post where I actually did fit it in via Subspace retcon and retconning the Emeralds to be Conduits to fit the series lore? Also, the story changes aren't fitting them in. They're applying new plots completely, basically how an adaptation would handle them. If this were an adaptation, I wouldn't care. And what exactly was gained continuity-wise with the Sonic Origins cutscenes, beyond some pretty animations? Let's see: Robotnik is a moron who wastes time building thrusters instead of collecting the gem of infinite power, and Tails just instantly imprints on some blue wind. Fantastic. I'm not going to stop my hatred of Sonic Origins plots just because other people don't care about their replacing the manuals. It's also driven by the fact SEGA clearly don't care either: shall we talk about the Master Emerald being a shiny green rock with no powers again? And to be clear, my issue with the plot. The animations are gorgeous and I would have loved a series of them. Already there.
"To hell with the other characters and locales and all that fun stuff, we want to add our piece to the tapestry of whatever that's called Sonic lore " Clearly they made the right choice although I will say one annoying thing about the other titles and this goes for a lot of cross-over games, but the locales they chose were always like level 1s of said series, which I get but I'd prefer more deep cuts (like Smash Bros for example, Sonic's levels are both GHZ based. Really who thought Windy Hill was a good level choice?). So it was nice seeing different environments in TSR anyway, like Sandopolis and Sand Hill callbacks. Pretty shameless they reused tracks from the other two racing titles though, including one they had to scale back in scope to fit this game (Ocean Palace removed the water lap at the end because no boats)
@BlackHole, I understand you passion for this franchise's lore and continuity, and I'm always reminded of your condition and viewpoints. But you're being too fervent and uncompromising about all this, leading to some needless arguments. Please, chill a little and accept changes. I got very displeased by Origins animations, and while @Boxer Hockey explained the choices they made, I can only disagree and resign to them. I also disagree with some continuity choices made by SEGA and folks here, but I accept diverging opinions, they may never come together. You got your headcanon, great. Don't dismiss others and try to cooperate or simply agree to disagreeing. The only potential Ultimate Bible existing ain't available to general populace (which I think is stupid, since they don't come clean themselves). So we gotta make do with what we can. I don't think it's worth fuming or blowing heads over it all.
For a long time I've thought that the Spinball Chaos Emeralds could be Emerald shards, ala Sonic Battle.
You already have to ignore the different shapes and colors of the Chaos Emeralds in the classic games, in order to fit the continuity. They changed from game to game, and sometimes were inconsistent within the same game. Sonic Team locked in a standard for the number of Chaos Emeralds, their colors and their shape with Sonic Adventure. This standard has been applied retroactively as well, as seen in Sonic Adventure's flashbacks and Sonic Origins' animations. Sonic Spinball's story can fit 95% into continuity. The part you have to ignore is there being 16 Chaos Emeralds in the game. If they had to explain it, they could say that some of the Chaos Emeralds got stolen away from Sonic in-between levels, since you never see more than 5 in the same stage. Sonic the Fighters is more troublesome in that regard, since you see all 8 Chaos Emeralds on one screen, and the plot calls for each of the 8 fighters to have a Chaos Emerald.
