I'd imagine Sonic Team would have provided the story? Although, Sonic Team are often inconsistent in a single story, so I don’t think that inconsistency means too much.
They also provided the story for the Sonic Forces comics, I don't think I need to explain why they don't work.
Actually, could you explain why they don’t work. I'm sure there's a valid reason, but Forces story was all over the place so I struggled to follow it.
Robotnik found the Phantom Ruby, whole and complete from the ending of Sonic Mania. He proceeds to use it on Knuckles and declares it more powerful than the Master Emerald, enough so that he outright ignore the now vulnerable Master Emerald. He then spends the next few months creating the Phantom Ruby as his perfect weapon, going through countless prototypes until he gets to his perfected final prototype, which is attached to Infinite. So he finds an all powerful gem that he believes is stronger than the Master Emerald, and then spends time creating the all powerful gem, going through several prototypes. They could easily fix this as well.
I actually read that and had no problem believing that he did both - what he found was imperfect on its own but would offer a lot, lot more if he continued to work on it. Essentially turning it into a raw material he works with instead of something like a Chaos Emerald which just *works*
Ah yes, imperfect. That's why he found his test with it a resounding success and nothing about any flaws it had...
Isn’t that after he starts making prototypes? He first finds it in the comic with pre-mask Infinite and experiments on it from there. The whole thing is a kind of sloppy way to explain away problems caused by Forces’ Phantom Ruby being a renamed version of a previous script’s plot point but it wasn’t very hard to follow
Indeed, I think the comics were trying to explain why the Phantom Rub both appears to be a naturally occurring gem from Mania, but also an artificial VR hologram generator that went through several prototypes. It would seem that for whatever reason, Eggman took what he learned from the real Ruby and made artificial copies of it based on what he thought it's powers were. While Mania!Eggman realized its full potential as a reality-warping gemstone, Modern!Eggman only discovered that it could create illusionary projections and set about perfecting it with artificial copies. It's never clearly laid out in either Mania or Forces so I think Ian's attempt to explain it, if a little flimsy, does work. Regarding Runners' story, I too consider it canon because of all the stuff they manage to explain and keep referring back to, such as why the wisps are still around (basically some of them just liked Sonic's world more). Whether or not it's still available on phones or not is inconsequential, it could be just as valid to the series lore as Kingdom Hearts' mobile game is to that franchise's plot (although in that case, it's a massive part of the story and it is Kingdom Hearts where nearly everything is canon). Granted, I haven't seen all of Runners' story for obvious reasons, but it seems just as valid as the game gear games seem to be.
Can't really tell, but considering it looks like the standard Phantom Ruby and we have no indication it's one of the prototype... Not to mention Robotnik apparently made a weaker copy for his 'perfect' version, since that one apparently needs a constant supply of energy... At the same time, Kingdom Hearts: Coded saw a rerelease on other mediums via Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded. If we got a Sonic Re:Runners, sure, I'd set it in the story. Until then, it goes with Sonic Dash in the fun but not canonical pile in my opinion. I'm sure elements from it are canonical explanations, but the game itself isn't to me.
If you wanna go that route, he also labeled breaking about the planet, draining the emeralds and turning Sonic into a werewolf a success. I think the term is relative. I'd think he'd recognize on some level it could warp his technology even further, the weird creepy take on the Death Egg Robot being an example.
Oh, all this Phantom Ruby talk reminded me that I found this concept art on one of those official Japanese streams many months ago. From left to right: the one used in the final boss the one Infinite wears on his chest seemingly every other one known to man Wonder if the written text is any more descriptive with them...
I say Runners goes before Lost World, because Sonic wasn't surprised to see the wisps in Lost World at all. But that is for the story mode. The special events would be non-canon because there are too many characters that shouldn't even be there in the first place, just for the sake of it.
I'd say it's even more valid than the Game gear games as it's made by Sonic Team and the story line directly follows up threads of the main games (Where as the GG games tended to do their own stories). I think it's only Chip coming back that's an issue (and we could probably explain him away) The rest are all seem okay to me (because there's no reason why the story book characters couldn't cross dimensions).
But it's awkward Sonic not knowing them, or pretending not knowing them, or being another Sonic (???). And it is also weird the bad guys teaming up with him. These and the Chip problem are more easily solvable if the events are non canon imo.
These are valid points, but my take is that the "pretending not to know them" thing solves it, because it gives a reason as to why he can't remember them (For, as he says in the game, it's something he likes to do, because he wants to hear people re-introduce themselves). Also, it was only Sonic who didn’t know them. Omochao was keenly aware of them and the role Sonic had played in the past. And I don’t think the bad guys teaming up is too problematic, because we've seen Sonic team up with Eggman in the past.
It was from this stream: There's a translation here, from greenyvertekins: https://greenyvertekins.tumblr.com/post/635874977593360385/true-blue-sonic-greenyvertekins-i-made-a
But Eggman and Sonic teamed up in the past when they needed to, like in Lost World. What was the reason for the storybook villains to team up with Sonic in Runners?
From memory, I think the only time they teamed up with the storybook villains was in the Secret Rings episode. From memory, Erazor Djinn had been freed and his body had been split into many pieces, creating lots of Mini Erazor Djinns. These minis went around granting the wishes of whoever found them. Eggman collected all the minis and used them to create a Super Erazor Djinn. So Sonic and the gang did the same and collected their own minis and created their own Super version. From the way they talked about it, it looked like the minis didn’t have any freewill they just did whatever their owners wished them to do.
Later I'll search the gameplay of this event to read the dialogues, but this story looks... bizarre. And what about Merlina? Wasn't she the real villain of her story? I don't remember if she became "good" after her defeat.
