The Sonic the Hedgehog Continuity Thread of Love and Timelines

120masked: wait spinball and 3d blast are canon?

Ian Flynn: Yep

Kyle Crouse: Always have been.

Ian Flynn: No but that was then, this is now.



19:59

 

3D Blast was always canon, I think. Spinball is the newcomer.

 

Sonic Team worked on both Sonic 3D and Sonic R. No Modern Sonic games referenced the events of Sonic 3D (there was no need to) but the Sonic 3D Flickies did show up in Sonic X.

 

Flickies also appeared during Amy's story in SA, but I can't recall if there were references beyond that.

 

Birdie wasn't officially called a Flicky in Sonic Adventure or any of its guide books, and its design isn't derived from Sonic 3D. Sonic X used the pink and green Flickies from Sonic 3D.

 

In the Steam manual of the arcade game Flicky it did actually mention Flickies being an important part of Sonic Adventure. https://segaretro.org/images/7/7b/Flicky_Steam_manual.pdf

"The Flicky birds are frequently featured in the Sonic the Hedgehog games. The most obvious one is Sonic 3D Blast™ (subtitled Flickies’ Island in Europe), where the birds are scattered on an island and must be rescued in order for Sonic to advance to the next area. The Flickies that Sonic rescues will also similarly follow Sonic around until he reaches a portal, where the Flickies are safely evacuated. In Sonic Adventure™, there are Flicky species featured in quests for both Amy Rose and E-102 Gamma."​

 

Sure, but that's so many years later and presumably written by a different department. The bird trio in Sonic Adventure aren't a reference to Sonic 3D, because they don't use the Sonic 3D designs. Even if someone who worked on Sonic Adventure said they were always intended to be Flickies, they're not the Sonic 3D Flickies, and Flickies were a part of the Sonic series before Sonic 3D.

Early screenshots of Sonic Adventure did show different colored Flickies in place of the final game's small animals that you free from robots, but they were all the original design, like in Sonic World from Sonic Jam.

 

I don't think that a different design in SA1 means anything.

 

I think Pengi's point is that since Flickies preceded S3D, any appearances of theirs can't be considered S3D references unless they use their designs from that game. They would still have appeared in SA1 onward if S3D didn't exist.

 

Ian: "Sonic 1 is Sonic and Eggman's very first meeting."

This comes from top brass, apparently, and it contradicts Sonic 1's manual for literally no reason.

 

Are they really top brass though? Doesn't matter, I'm electing to disregard them in favour of the manual for S1 and SegaSonic.

 

as always this could potentially get brought up in a game, or in comics if you care about that

 

I hope that comes to pass. Also, I don't actually mean to dispute their authority... but this just makes zero sense to me and is unnecessarily contradictory. I've already mentioned, as have others, that the manual for S1 explicitly states that Sonic and Eggman have encountered each other before. Beyond that, why would Eggman sport his Eggmobile's wrecking ball if he wasn't aware of the threat of Sonic?

 

any manuals for sonic 1 would currently be non-canon as the stuff that is currently canon is what is in sonic origins' new cutscenes

 

I don't think they ever stated that the manuals are non-canon. Just that the Origins cutscenes are canon. I don't see much reason to assume that stuff from the manuals that isn't contradicted by Origins is non-canon.

 

Here's the thing: Origins never says or even implies that Sonic 1 is the first time Sonic and Eggman meet, unless I missed something. This retcon is brand new. So it makes you wonder what else is retconned about the Classic games.

 

Don't worry. Five or ten years from now they are going to retcon the retcon by creating a Sonic 0, telling how Sonic and Eggman first met.

 

I just hope that ends up being a remake of SegaSonic, preferably expanded.

 

Hmm… I don’t really like the change but it doesn’t really affect much all things considered.