Some people don't consider Sonic Rivals canon, due to someone, I think Iizuka considering his track record (see: off the cuff remarks comment prior), saying it wasn't but Nega being from the future was still canonical.
People just say it's the same Silver, just without the memories of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). Since Sonic Forces is his first console game appearance since then, does that mean Sonic Forces is some sort of psuedo-sequel to Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)...? Apparently not, since he verified that no, he definitely meant separate planets and someone in SEGA claimed he inherited it from Yuji Naka, and claimed it was always the case since Sonic Adventure. Considering the fact Sonic Adventure itself disputes that... Sonic Forces is really where this mess started, with it's insistence Sonic Mania was another dimension (I've checked, Robotnik still calls it an alternate dimension during the boss fight, I tried the "Past World is considered Alternate World" in dialogue defence on that already). And that game couldn't even get it's own continuity right, with Robotnik having built Infinite in solitude but not really. Don't suppose mine was one of them
Rivals 1/2 were non canon for a bit, at least according to one of the comic writers who asked about it several years ago, and now they’re canon again. I think the logic behind making them non canon for a while was that they never came out in Japan. As for rings being in Rivals’ story… The characters also tell you what buttons to press and explain the game mechanics in each game. I don’t think you’re meant to think too hard about rings being canon or not. They are when they need to be and aren’t when they don’t. A lot of gameplay elements like collectibles are vaguely defined story-wise in games because it’s more convenient that way. Rings and power ups largely have no real purpose outside of gameplay but don’t really mess up the story if you include them. I guess if you want to over analyze things you could ask why they don’t go flying out of the characters when they get hurt in cutscenes or why they aren’t floating randomly in the air everywhere but it doesn’t actually matter at all.
Naka maintained it was one world named Earth, even in 2011 during an interview, so I'd say he wasn't the source of that. Nah I checked, during the actual fight with the Egg Dragoon, he says "another dimension" even in Japanese. In the comments of one of the stages: Tails: This is where Eggman built Infinite..." Amy: That's awful.. He was all by himself in such a lonely place for so long... Then we later learned he was a Mercenary that got smacked about by Shadow.
Yeah, Rivals were non canon during an unspecified amount of time, and when that blew up nobody could understand the timeline anymore. But it's canon now, again. And even so, the canonicity of the rings are still unclear. Ian said that, from his current understanding, rings are just gameplay element even if some game used them as part of the plot. (at 9:40 - ) At the same time, Knuckles Chaotix is canon again, and thus the Chaos Rings are canon too because they are part of the plot. And it would be very weird if the Chaos Rings are canon but the regular rings are not. Ian said he doesn't know what the Chaos Rings actually are. (at 11:00 - )
So pretty much on my boat of continuity then. Actually, I did a check once on how often the name Earth is mentioned in the localisation over the Japanese. Gerald was the only one who actually stated Earth when he declared , the rest were "the world" or "that planet". There was a total of four times when the planet was called Earth, three of which were Sonic Riders games. Sonic Rivals 2 also had Silver talk of the different time periods as separate worlds. Spoiler You would think Shadow would mention "Infinite? Oh, I fought him before. He's not a robot, just some mercenary on a power trip."
I know it doesn't *technically* count because of how loose an adaption it is, but the second Sonic movie is culturally worth five hundred times more than a smattering of long-obseleted 90's adaptions in terms of sheer brand presence. It set a tone, and was likely discussed and approved if not storyboarded at that point. I know this is an unsatisfying statement to someone who has your fine-detail view on Sonic canon, but the movies are such a significant rock dropped in a pond that has mostly had pebbles skimmed across it for 30 years. It may not be nearly as elegant, but it absolutely makes waves.
The fact the producers managed to properly introduce Knuckles and the Emeralds (Chaos & Master) in a satisfying way (and G.U.N., in a sense) while keeping rings relevant and building a lore that (in my humble opinion) doesn't hurt any kind of continuity (and even can be pieced together with the Pachacamac and Nocturnus echidna tribes)... And heck, it even fits nicely into the more whacky and dream-like vision ST originally had for the franchise, with the parallel words connected by rings. So yeah, I agree. If anything, ST could try to take notes from the movieverse and build a whole new continuity from there, keeping things simpler and not depending on the old continuity. Still, us not knowing much about Tails and Sonic's original world... And the whole thing with Shadow, in the upcoming 3rd movie... Yeah, many questions yet to answer ^^" Also, @BlackHole, @Rafa Stary, about your praiseworthy endeavors at piecing ALL games into one continuity... If it were to be as you say, how many in-universe years would've passed by now? Wouldn't characters like Cream, Amy and Tails have shown clear signs of growth by now? Wouldn't Eggman get older by now, in some way? How would you factor all those details? That's one of the reasons I accept Classic & Modern games being treated as parallel realities. It's also why I insist not ALL games are deemed to fit one single continuity. I simply can't shut my brain off from all those fine details that make or break the franchise...
I don't want to antagonize Flynn, but it seems that by "in like every form of media surrounding that scene or something adjacent, you get the Super Sonic fight" what he actually means is "in like every form of media surrounding that scene or something adjacent made by me, you get the Super Sonic fight", which is how it happens in Archie in both Genesis (Issue 229) and the post-reboot continuity (Sonic Comic Origins: The traitor), as Blackhole mentioned previously. He probably wasn't thinking about the movie when he wrote that, since the Encyclo-speed-ia was released a few months earlier and he might've not even know what would happen in the movie at that point in time. I also think that what an adaptation chooses to do should have no say in how you interpret the original work, no matter how many or how relevant they are There's also this infamous scene in Shadow the Hedgehog The only arguments I've seen for Rings not being a canon element is either because it's weird to imagine they actually existing (which I agree, but it's not convincing enough) and how not every piece of media being currently made references them, which is actually very common in a lot of these "Is [insert thing that hasn't come up in a while for whatever reason] still canon even though there isn't any reason to think it's not?" questions edit: Just adding this bit because I forgot. The people who wrote those stories where Rings are mentioned asked the same question we are now, and their conclusion was "Yes, Rings are canon". Everyone else either didn't even think about it, or their answer was "No, they aren't". I don't think there's many reasons to doubt them being canon In-Universe, but if you look at each game in a vacuum, yeah, stuff like Forces were probably made with the writers assuming that they aren't because it's a fairly logical conclusion and most people working on these games never cared about continuity anyway, specially about small details like that
About rings: It doesn’t seem to be on YouTube any more, but a while back, Windii had translated the Eggman announcements in Sonic Colors and one of those made reference to rings (in a non-gameplay context). Hopefully some will re-upload it. 100% agreed. I preferred how Sonic Team used to handle continuity. They didn’t really say anything about it other than dropping breadcrumbs here and there which fans could use to form their own Headcanon. This new approach of making things more explicit isn’t as good, as some of their decisions are creating new inconsistencies, which are harder to reconcile.
ST, at first, didn't seem to pend that way, but years of fans almost begging them to do it only opened this Pandora's Box...
As pointed out, the Encyclo-Speed-ia was released prior to that, so that's unlikely. I'd also argue Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022) is more an adaptation of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles. The most adaptation you get from Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Mega Drive) is Tails' introduction and backstory which, I mean, has been covered plenty without it being an adaptation of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Mega Drive). And while some would say the Death Egg Robot is adapted from Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Mega Drive), considering the name (Giant Eggman Robot), size and powerset is closer to the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles version (Giant Eggman Robo), including the "snot laser" and the fact it's empowered by the Master Emerald, I'd say it's more towards that side of things. Eeeeh, still baffled by the logistics of the Master Emerald origins in the Movie's Universe. Several years, but I think it should be vague since giving actual years means confusion later. The Little Planet, for instance, can only be used so many times due to it's annual nature, so if I were to suggest, say, three years between the start of the Classic era and start of the Adventure era, I have to pray they only use the Little Planet once more* in a game between those two starts. I do like the idea that the Classic Era and Adventure era being separate by 4 years, based on Amy and Vector's ages both increasing by 4, but that's ignoring the other ages where characters have deaged or remained the same so not really a valid point in my opinion. So a handful of years have passed, but no specifics on the how many. I'd also still bring Amy closer to Sonic's age anyway, since a 15 - 16 year old having a date with an 8 year old in Sonic and the Black Knight is... yikes... I would also still argue that the cast have aged between the Classic and Adventure eras, with that long standing argument of the redesigns acting as said aging. We can argue all we like about the context of it, but we have characters in-universe confirming Classic Sonic is 'younger' and less spiky than his modern counterpart, so we can use them if we so choose. We also know from Uekawa that it was the intent of the redesign to make them look older, even if there was no in-universe aging or change at the time. I wonder if Naoto Ohshima might be able to give us some input on the redesigns and any implied aging... but let's not pester him, he gave us Dubious Depths so I think that's our Sonic the Hedgehog developmental insight from him used up for the decade As for Cream, unfortunately that's nothing I can really say there. One would think the cast would have 'aged' during Sonic Forces' near full year (Episode Shadow's "Several months ago" with Shadow fighting Pre-Infinite Jackal, and the six months skip giving us a rough 9 months to a year estimate), but Sonic Team kept them static, so that's simply one more in a long, long list of issues with that game. I would have stated "some time has passed since..." for the events of that game and left it at that. Robotnik's 60 years old already, assuming the series starts in series' release year of 1991, so I think all he has to do for age is get more wrinkles. Man has aged phenomenally. And was also around 10 years old when his Grandfather was executed, so that's fun. *Sonic the Hedgehog CD and Sonic the Hedgehog 4 for two of three years, leaving out Sonic Mania due to the ambiguous nature of the Phantom Ruby's powerset. I think any further discussion of this nature should probably be shuffled over to the Headcanons thread as well.
Is it their approach at all? Reminder once again, the Bumblekast is not an official Sega podcast. Remove all that Ian's saying- what info is ST actually dropping by themselves?
To be honest, I am getting kinda tired of all this "Well Ian said this." kinda stuff that seems to be happening lately.
This is a fair point. But at the same time, I was also thinking of things like the Origins animations, which don’t fit with the original manual stories. Granted the changes are understandable and not a big deal, but I can’t help but feel disappointed. Plus, with Sega hiring a lore manager, I think there’s a good chance that some of the things Ian is discussing will start making it to the games (Admittedly, this is speculation, but it doesn’t feel completely unfounded).
TailsTube is one new avenue by which lore is being communicated in an official capacity. The institution of a one-world setting was solidified in its first episode, for instance. But I do think you’re right in repeating that the Bumblekast is not official and not intended to be the final word of Sega. It is a casual project Ian does in his spare time to help make a few bucks from Patreon. It only even became q&a focused when it became clear listeners only listened to the q&a portion of the podcast. You’ve mentioned before how any information we glean about Sega is via a game of telephone between Sega employees to Ian to us, and that combined with the shifting nature of Sega’s decisions means there really shouldn’t be an expectation of 100% accurate information. Everything shared is just to the best of Ian’s imperfect knowledge in response to questions asked of him. He makes no pronouncements and frequently prefaces his answers that they are to the best of his understanding. At that point, it’s up to the listeners to recognize this.
