I always took Lost Hex as an attempt to recapture some of the mystique you got with Little Planet. It's a mini planet in orbit around Sonic's world that is hard to locate and is naturally bizarre for whatever reason. Little Planet is executed better, but I could see similar complaints about its "just... there".
To be fair, there's lore behind the Little Planet: it appears above Never Lake one month out of the year (which also gives us a nice annual calculator of a year between Sonic the Hedgehog CD, Sonic Mania and Sonic the Hedgehog 4, so 2 years have passed between those three games) and houses the Time Stones, which is implicitly why it disappears 11 out of 12 months. The Lost Hex just appears, "wow, the mythical Lost Hex" and that's that, we're now wandering about the Lost Hex. There's some implied Human involvement, but that's about it.
Little Planet is executed better because we know what is the whatever reason. There's this mystical set of gems that controls time and because of it the whole satellite vanishes and appears out of nowhere during 1 month per year. We don't need to know about the Time Stones because we barely know anything about any mystical gem in the franchise, so it's okay. Lost Hex is unknown because of... what? Clouds? That shell is unlikely to be as mysterious as any gem, so who created this thing? I guess whoever created this did it to stop the Deadly Six, so where was it? Lying on the ground so Eggman could find it? It lacks everything needed for any engagement.
well they certainly did a bang up job of not recapturing any of the magic of forming an emotional connection with the location because of the enchanting music and how the player actively has to fight for its prosperity. Real good job Sonic Team. Both locations are quite inexplicable, but one clearly has the elements to make it feel like a cohesive whole, while the other is a bunch of nonsense trying to imitate what an old Sonic game looks like. The fact Colors, Generations and Lost World all took place off planet or in a time vortex strike me as them being reluctant to actually show the world Sonic lives on, so they just kept coming up with excuses not to see it because of the confusion in the earlier games.
Believe it or not, I completely agree with the above comments. I was just trying to point out what the intention might have been there. Reigning it in to the topic a bit though, The fact that Sega is actively encouraging the creation of more Zeti could open the door to Ian creating an interesting backstory for The Lost Hex, namely why it's "lost" and why it's hexagonal. I'm willing to believe he may have some interesting ideas for it. I do believe Ian could bring some much-needed depth to both the characters and setting of Lost World if given a chance.
If I had to bet Sonic Team probably internally has a reason as to why it is the lost hex. but they dont see any context surrounding this setting as important enough to actually tell anyone
So I was watching this video (1:05:44) and the guy pulled off a theory that Gerald Robotnik was inspired by the murals left by the ancient echidnas (SA1 and S3K) when he created the BioLizard and Shadow, respectively. BioLizard would be based on Chaos, and Shadow would be based on Super Sonic. And someone (GoldStorm07) in the comments mentioned that Sonic Battle almost confirms that Shadow indeed was created based on Super Sonic's mural. Is that true?
Okay, where exactly does Sonic Battle make that claim? Because I see people broadly cite that game as evidence like it's got some iron-clad peer-reviewed evidence, and while I haven't played it, it's conspicuous that it never goes any deeper than that. I think I've heard it relates to Gerald's Journal entries, but the only bits of those that are relevant... But it's quite a leap to assume that these "stone tablets" mean Gerald would've ever set foot on Angel Island, let alone somehow made it all the way down into Hidden Palace Zone, let ALONE gotten to the mural and somehow not noticed the MASTER EMERALD just one room over. It's a fun fan theory, and it makes some sense if you shoehorn it the right way. But it's definitely NOT what was intended when SA2 was in development, both because Shadow's early concept character design didn't resemble Super Sonic, and because Shiro Maekawa wasn't a fan of "Mega Drive era" Sonic anyway. I think the only thing definitively in-continuity for SA2 was SA1, haha. I *do* think it's significantly more likely that the Biolizard was meant to replicate Perfect Chaos, as depicted in the Lost World mural. Or at least, I'd buy that Gerald explored the Mystic Ruins Jungle and the culture that used to be there. (Lost World wasn't on Angel Island.) So, why is Shadow a hedgehog? The best guess I've got is that (as of Sonic Adventure's version of canon) the only beings aside from Chaos that can harness the emeralds' power are (male) hedgehogs, and since Gerald knew that the "Ultimate Lifeform" needed to do that, and his prototype couldn't...
It's all but confirmed that he did visit both Angel Island and the Mystic Ruins as the core of the ARK and the path to it are based on the Master Emerald Shrine and the temple in Lost World (stage) respectively. It's very likely he saw the Chaos mural, but we have nothing to confirm he saw the mural in Hidden Palace. Indeed, he based the shrine in the core off the one seen throughout Adventure, not the one from Sonic 3. Doing a cursory look over Prof. Gerald's Journal from Battle, there's nothing there to collaborate this theory. (and apparently others have answered above while i was writing this post, rip) Do we have any confirmation that Maekawa-san wasn't a fan of the Genesis titles and their stories? I keep seeing that thrown out here on Retro, but I've never seen anything to back that statement up. For what it's worth, if he wasn't a fan, he did actively build upon the lore that was being established in 3 & Adventure.
It's from this Sonic Channel interview. Google Translate will get you a rough idea, but I asked a friend of mine who's lived in Japan for five years and speaks it fluently (he teaches English to students) to provide as literal a translation as possible. ...see, I don't think he really DID, and that's kind of a lot of my issue with him, and with most of the writing of the era spawned by SA2, haha. I think he's being honest there: He tried to make Sonic more to HIS tastes, without much appreciation for what it had been before. It's just that, y'know, that might be alienating and off-putting to someone who DID like what Sonic had been to that point. SA2 was the point where Sonic stopped feeling like Sonic to some people, but it was the FIRST IMPRESSION of what Sonic was about for others. It resonated with different people, and to different tastes, and that's not necessarily a bad thing (I'm sure Stan Lee and Steve Ditko didn't imagine Tom Holland's Spider-man, nor should "keeping in-line with the original vision" be the only factor in media criticism), but I do think it's in large part why SA2, its tone, and the precedent it set, was and is so polarizing.
I must be misremembering, but I thought BioLizard was not supposed to be a giant fucking monster; he became this because things went wrong. So how was he based on Perfect Chaos? Wasn't he supposed to be a regular-size lizard?
This says he was larger than expected, but not what his size was supposed to be to begin with. So it's possible but not outright stated, unless there's something else out there that is more specific. I'm personally a big fan of the theory that Gerald was drawing inspiration from all of the aforementioned elements, but I imagine if anyone that worked on SA2 was asked they'd shoot all of this down in an instant.
Okay, I've been dealing with this for a while, and I'm sure SOMEONE has to have the same issue: What is up with wikia images? They always bug out for me like this. I used to think it was one of my extensions doing it, because it WORKS if I open them in incognito tabs, but if I disable all my extensions, it still doesn't work. It makes discussion, especially on forums, a huge pain.
Open the (broken) image in a new tab, and in the image's url address, remove everything at the end of it starting with "revision." Not sure why this happens, but that always loads the image properly for me.
Those blue-alien-things in SA2 I'm sure were based on Chaos. But they are so like Chaos that it doesn't look like the BioLizard would be based on Perfect Chaos. The BioLizard is not blue, it doesn't look like he's made of water. If Gerald Robotnik could create this fake-Chaos with such resemblance, I don't see why he would create a lizard to replicate Perfect Chaos.
Artificial Chaos, which does permit that Gerald had access to some Echidna ruins. Initial Prototype, the Artificial Chaos came later when he had more knowledge on things.
I mean, I grew up with the genesis games, so that was how I understood Sonic. I didn't play SA2 until 12 years later, and I still like SA2's style better, regardless of how firm my roots in the classics are. First impressions aren't everything, and playing the classics first isn't gonna cement where your tastes lie. It's gonna be different for everyone.
