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The Sonic the Hedgehog Continuity Thread of Love and Timelines

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by dredd, Jul 6, 2020.

  1. RDNexus

    RDNexus

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    Tough life, no doubt. Anyway, good to know you're still eager to do it.
    By the way, where did you post that S3K animated sequence of yours?
     
  2. BlackHole

    BlackHole

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    On YouTube and in this thread, to my recollection. Here, since otherwise you're going through nearly 400 pages of debate and argument:
     
  3. Ura

    Ura

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    Admittedly, I'm that person that who's going to stay unsatisfied no matter how well they do what they're trying to, because what I think would be the better is something entirely different than that. I genuinely feel that there's nothing that they can do to even trick me into thinking that they can fix three decades worth of stories that makes no sense though, which is why I suggested a reboot in the first place.

    I really dislike Flynn's writing in IDW, but the man has commitment, and I think that there is a lot of potential for the improvement of Sonic narratives now that there is a lore team. I just feel that this potentially interesting new direction is being dragged onto the mud by what's essentially an entire generation of just messing around.

    I do understand why they don't reboot the series, since it might alienate a lot of fans and it would just be a bad decision from a corporate stand point in general, but I just want to be able to tell a hypotethical friend that wants to enjoy Sonic stories something like "The series begins a new continuity at this point, so this is the stuff that's actually important now" rather than "Just pretend that those stories aren't actually that bad of a mess and ignore everything that new material selectively tells you to ignore". I just feel that this new team taking stuff seriously now is being wasted because the amount of "bad" material is overwhemingly higher.

    It does, but my point is that Mario doesn't concern itself nearly as much as Sonic does.

    Most Sonic games released before Unleashed have explicit connections to previous entries in the franchise. Sonic 3 & Knuckles is a direct sequel to Sonic 2, Adventure is a sequel to 3, Adventure 2 has plenty of elements that tie to those stories (and even more if you count popular headcanons that were made connecting the dots that are already there), Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog are all sequels to SA2, 06 takes Shadow's previous character development and takes it further, etc.

    Sonic's continuity is more complicated in nature since it attempts at something much bigger than Mario. It also means that Sonic bites more than it can chew and you end up with stuff like Tails losing all of his development and Frontiers having to retroactively do everything it can to insert this character regression into actual development.

    When I said that Mario doesn't concern itself with continuity, I meant that the series isn't trying to make interconnected narratives across all games. What bothers me about Sonic is that there are things that are built across multiple games (mostly character development), but at the same time, they don't commit to it enough for me to be able to see everything as part of the same continuity. What I mean by that is that you have things like Battle adding to the story of Adventure 2 while taking place in a world that seemingly contradict almost every single game before.

    Going back to why I want a reboot, while Frontiers did the best it could to fix Tails, it doesn't make me any less annoyed at what he became previously, it still doesn't make sense to me that he became useless in Unleashed, it's still just as bad as it was before, but the series is reassuring me that they're working to improve it, but then I'm just left asking "What was the point of that anyway?", you can fix those things now all you want, but those problems didn't even have to exist in the first place, so I feel it's a waste of effort to do it.


    I mean, they are going to replace the "previous canon" anyway, since they are retconning stuff now. The difference between a reboot and what they're doing now, is that a reboot would leave both canons clearly sepparate by a hard line, while retcons create the confusing situation of having to know what is new and valid information, and what is old and outdated.

    As for the fear of not liking the hypotethical reboot, this is a sentiment I also share, however I still would prefer that over what we're getting, and I do think it would be a better showcase of commitment on their part. It's easier for me to start to enjoy something new, rather than watch them morphing the current series into something new that also keeps previous history.

    Essentially, we are getting a soft reboot, when I believe that a full on hard reboot would be easier for me to swallow.

    I don't want them to stop trying to make Sonic have a continuity, but it is a solution if they can't commit to making things consistant, which is what I actually want.

    The effect plot holes have on a story is dependent on how many and how big the holes are. I feel that media criticism these days focuses too much on plot holes, I'm willing to ignore mistakes as long as the core narrative still works. However, that doesn't change the fact that the Sonic series is filled with holes, and they are usually really big, so it's hard to ignore them. The Adventures are enjoyable because they still work despite their small holes, but then you get stuff like the Rush/06/Rivals situation, where I have to create an entire story in my head just to be able to explain basic shit like what's going on with the characters of those games.

    It's not that I want the series to be perfect, I just want to see Sonic stories being developed with a clear vision without having to be dragged down by the confusion caused by keeping previous titles as relevant as the new ones, when it's very obvious how the mentality of those working on the series has changed drastically.



    But even if we don't get a hard reboot, I hope we can at least get some good sources of information about what Sonic's world and continuity are supposed to be like now. I certainly wouldn't mind an encyclopedia with rewritten manuals for the classic games (the non main four to be exact) and explanations/retcons about other things, like if Shadow can perform Chaos Control without an emerald or not, what's the deal with Silver's future, etc. It's not my perfect solution, but having sources other than interviews and Q&As or having to guess which information I should selectively believe myself would already be a great step forward
     
  4. Blue Spikeball

    Blue Spikeball

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    Pretty sure Mario doesn't have a continuity. I recall Miyamoto stating that the Mario characters are basically actors that play roles in different games. That's why we have things like a subseries where Mario is a doctor and Peach a nurse, or a crossover game where the Paper Mario universe exists within a book in the Mario & Luigi universe.
     
  5. Shaddy the guy

    Shaddy the guy

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    Sonic has a loose continuity, Mario has a looser continuity, the difference is that Mario's continuity doesn't matter. Whether it has "canon" or not, a given Mario game doesn't tend to rely on plot or character threads from previous games.

    Neither does Sonic, usually -- for all that we obsess over canon, most of this stuff is pretty arbitrary, which is why I can't meaningfully view the replacement of parts of the canon as a bad thing, so long as the seams aren't too visible and what's new doesn't suck. Sonic just happens to have more elaborate storytelling than Mario, and revels in its own nostalgia in a different manner than Nintendo, so a lot of the mistakes and "mistakes" stand out more.
     
    Last edited: Apr 28, 2023
  6. Cooljerk

    Cooljerk

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    There are a few Mario games that have continuity. The Mario Land games, for example, follow each other directly. The story for Mario Land 2 is that while he was in Sarahsaland in Mario land 1, Wario invaded his castle. And Wario Land takes place right after Wario was kicked out of Mario's castle.
     
  7. Blue Spikeball

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    Fair enough, a few of the subseries have continuity between their installments.

    Still doesn't make for a timeline. The Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi series are even treated as separate universes in their crossover game.
     
  8. BlackHole

    BlackHole

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    There's several things that you can use to discern a timeline. For instance, Super Mario World's Ghost Ship is one of the airships from Super Mario Bros. 3, which crashed into the Dinosaur Islands. the Yoshi's Island games have a storyline through them (they go first game, New Island on 3DS, DS). There is a timeline you can discern, it's not just random events.

    But this isn't the Super Mario Bros. Timeline Thread, so I'll leave that there.

    Also, Paper Mario was indicated to be an alternative universe/fiction when Mario started folding himself into paper airplanes.
     
  9. Cooljerk

    Cooljerk

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    mind blown
     
  10. BlackHole

    BlackHole

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    Kinda tempted to make a Thread in General Gaming regarding Continuity and Timelines of other game series in general, due to this response...

    It's such an interesting topic so long as cool heads are kept.
     
  11. Blue Spikeball

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    Say, I don't suppose we ever got any explanation as to what's the source of Sonic's time traveling powers in Sonic CD? It's not the Time Stones, and I don't think the time warp plates are canon.
     
  12. Levi Church

    Levi Church

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    The plates are canon. Sonic uses them in a cutscene in Mania. The 2011 re-release manual explains it: "It is a place where the past, present and future collide, thanks to the mysterious Time Stones that lie hidden deep within the planet."
    [​IMG]
     
  13. Childish

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    It's just how time works on little planet (presumably because of the timestones) it's all a mess of different times all being fluid allowing sonic and robotnik to travel in time whenever.

    EDIT: ninja'd lol
     
  14. BlackHole

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    They kind of have to be canon: as you said, it's not the Time Stones giving Sonic that ability, as he was doing it before he nabbed one.

    Perhaps they're something Robotnik put down in an attempt to control the weird flow of time of the Little Planet?
     
  15. Blue Spikeball

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    Oh, I know it's a Little Planet thing. But I don't think the plates have ever been mentioned in any lore?

    I forgot about the plate in that Mania cutscene. Though I don't think it necessarily mean that they're canon. It could be just Mania using the same representation of Sonic's use of the time warp power as CD.
     
  16. raphael_fc

    raphael_fc

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    My interpretation is that time in Little Planet is weird and Sonic is able to warp between past, present and future due to his natural speed (kind of like he's restoring spacetime in Generations), but the plates are just game mechanic to represent this.
     
  17. Blue Spikeball

    Blue Spikeball

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    I like this. I think it's the simplest and most elegant interpretation.
     
  18. BlackHole

    BlackHole

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    So how does Sonic know how to go backwards or forwards in time?
     
  19. raphael_fc

    raphael_fc

    Overthinking Sonic timelines. Member
    He learned by trial and error in Palmtree Panic.
     
  20. raphael_fc

    raphael_fc

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    Shockingly, Tails and the Music Maker is not canon.