I always took it more related to/calling back to Sky Sanctuary Zone, which in all fairness is on Angel Island. And on that note, Zone names are kinda dumb and arbitrary; "Angel Island Zone", named for the entire island, is but the island's beach and near-coastal jungles. Might as well call Emerald Hill "Westside Island Zone". With regards to Green Hill and "Green Hill", let's not forget Green Hill from Forces, which is on a huge landmass, and not what seems to be "South Island". Blast's Green Hill being described as being on South Island gives it a better claim to being the same area we go through at the start of Sonic 1 than the Forces level has, at least.
Honestly, I treat Sonic Forces in a similar vein to Sonic Mania: a good portion is illusionary and messing with the inhabitants, versus actually occurring. The Death Egg exists, the tower exists, but South Island has been 'merged' with West Side Island illusionarily. When the Phantom Copy was destroyed/Phantom Ruby hit hard enough to be sent back in time/to another universe (ugh), it all reverted back, akin to what happened with the Phantom Copies of Metal Sonic, Chaos, Shadow and Zavok. But that's me headcanoning out a bad plot.
It's impossible to reconcile Green Hill's appearance in Forces with other games, unless you reason that there are just somehow multiple Green Hills Zones. It's another showcase of Forces' utter lazyness when it comes to the series and it's simply using Green Hill because it's a Sonic thing and it's a Sonic game so it needs to have Sonic things Don't the Game Gear games take place in something of an alternate interpretation of the series anyway? It could just be the same zone. It's like, whatever
Except that that would also include 8-bit Sonic 1 and Sonic Drift, both of which feature traditional Green Hill as we know it
Guys, don't you see? It makes perfect sense continuity-wise! Sonic the Hedgehog (Master System) - Green Hill Zone Standard, intact, etc. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Master System) - Green Hills Zone Slightly different design, but familiar checkboard patterns dot it, so possibly a slightly different locale: different trees, might be more inland versus the lake/seaside Green Hill Zone. Sonic Chaos - Mecha Green Hill Zone Here's the kicker, Robotnik industrialised it at one point, with metal walls being attached to the cliff-faces... Sonic Blast - Green Hill Zone ...so clearly, this is the zone recovering from the above Mechanization. Eventually, the checkerboard pattern starts showing through the rocky walls where the industrialisation was removed as weathering and Chaos Energy healing attend to it, returning it to the standard appearance for later appearances, such as Sonic the Fighters onward. I b a genius!
Even if Green Hill's location on the in-game map was an issue on the same level as the characters saying "Okay, now let's jog over to Angel Island Zone!", I honestly don't see Forces being brought up again / considered canon. It's just too big of a victory / event to be recovered from without making whatever you do with Eggman afterwards an escalation or feel cheap by comparison. IDW chose the escalation route and pretty much made it impossible to top, and now everything after that with Eggman is going to feel like he's underachieving.
If Sky Sanctuary is located on Angel Island, then where is Knuckles fighting powered up Mecha Sonic? IIRC, the Floating Island is seen Wobbling in the sky in the background, right? So, is the fight taking place in some unknown place related to ancient echidna?
You are correct in that it's seen in the background and Sky Sanctuary is otherwise detached from it. I've always figured Sky Sanctuary was one of two things: A set of ruins that detached from Angel Island via weathering and just kind of hover nearby due to ambient Master Emerald energy. A perimeter construct built around the island to better guard it if discovered, only the Death Egg kind of slammed through, resulting in its collapse. Edit: I'm kind of curious as to how well we can chart the Green Hill Zone's appearance in some kind of makeshift continuity... Let's go with the base I established as a bit of a lark, remove Green Hills Zone as I'm almost certain that's more inland, and add the other instances with Mecha Green Hill Zone as a center... Spoiler Sonic the Hedgehog (Mega Drive/Master System) Spoiler - Green Hill Zone Sonic Generations (Classic, before being sucked into the void) Sonic Drift - Green Hill Zone Sonic the Hedgehog Chaos - Mecha Green Hill Zone Sonic Blast - Green Hill Zone Sonic the Fighters - South Island Sonic Pocket Adventure - Neo South Island Zone (?) Sonic Forces So headcanoning Sonic Blast's different design as 'recovery' from it's prior Mechanisation, if we look at Sonic the Fighters' take on South Island, there is a lot of similar 'rough' with the checkerboard only really poking out via a strip, which can be seen in the South Island and Canyon Cruise's stages... Not sure if I should count Neo South Island Zone: I don't count Neo Green Hill Zone from Sonic Advance, but apparently in the internal data it's just called South Island... eh, I'll leave it there. Otherwise, hm, I'm gonna have to shift Sonic Drift on the timeline, before Sonic Chaos... (Just for record, I don't believe for a second this was intended, but hey, gifthorse mouths...)
Not necessarily. The Game Gear games were developed by a separate team from 8 bit Sonic 1 and 2 and demonstrably have their own take on things. But regardless, the zone is Green Hill Zone, and it's on South Island. It's Green Hill Zone.
...What does this even mean? If the zone is undisputably Green Hill, why did you bring up the different development teams like you were trying to counter it? "The Green Hill from the first two games comes from a different team so it's different, but the Green Hill from Blast (which is also made by non Sonic Team) is in fact the original Green Hill Zone, (even though the other two are more similar in every way). This entire convo about Blast is kinda amusing ngl
Hello I am about to reply to many things Or Eggman built another Chemical Plant off the coast of South Island. It's not impossible for more than one structure to look similar. I heard there's a million McDonalds, and a lot of them sure look the same. How can Pinball Party be before Sonic Adventure 2? Shadow is on the bracket. He can't play pinball if he's in cold storage. Also, I'm a proponent of Advance being after Adventure 2. It's just a random adventure, in a random location. The visuals evoke the Adventure era, but they do not need to be in the same area that Adventure and its sequel take place. There's also a meta layer, in which Adventure 2 is the final bow of Sonic on Sega hardware, while Advance is the first new game on a Nintendo system. It's the end of an era, and the beginning of a new one. Symbolically, I like the idea of Advance being later. Looking at this again, while I don't agree with all the timeline splits, I do understand your reasoning for them. All except one - the split that results in Sonic Chronicles and Sonic Advance 3. All the other splits are due to time travel shenanigans, but Eggman splitting the planet apart using Chaos Control isn't? Yes, we see Chaos Control can result in time travel, a la Sonic 06. But they also just freeze time, or allow teleportation, or something. Eggman gets the emeralds and cracks open the planet in a nicer way than he does in Unleashed. It gets put back together. Nothing is erased, nothing is changed, it's just linear events. What is the variable that would allow for Advance 3 to not happen, but for Chronicles to go on? You could make the argument Carnival Night should also be on that list. You can feasibly explain why Knuckles wouldn't question the need for Launch Base - if Eggman if benevolent and is doing research on this legendary egg of the dragon, he might need to build something to check it out. A carnival? How do you explain that one? And if it was just built, how would Knuckles know how it works? He's the one who turns off the power. There's little reason for Knuckles to be ok with a carnival being built by Eggman at the same time he's "trying to stop Sonic from stealing the Master Emerald." Not gonna lie, I like the name Mirage Island. I'm also not a big fan of Never Lake just being on an island we already know. Every main Sonic game in the classic era takes place in a new location. A new place for Sonic to explore. Also, if CD takes place between 1 and 2, well. If Never Lake is on Westside Island, that means Sonic would land, go to Never Lake, have an entire adventure fighting Eggman, then go back to his plane, meet Tails, and Eggman would show up laughing about how he followed Sonic thinking he would lead him to the Chaos Emeralds, even though he was already on the island because of Little Planet before Sonic would have come to visit Never Lake. Doesn't make much sense to me. Not gonna lie, there is something about the idea of the Game Gear games preceding a world where Sonic 06 happens that tickles me. The only main issue is that Sonic 06 does not result in one Chaos Emerald being missing from the rest of the games that precede it, but two. The white emerald is in possession of the Duke of Soleanna, uses it to seal Iblis in his daughter. Silver takes it it with him to the present, holds onto it, then takes it with him to the future. If we're assuming the blue Chaos Emerald is off the board because of Elise having it, with have to also take the white emerald off the board, too. It's a fun theory, but I don't think it works, personally.
NiGHTS, Reala and Wizeman are also on there: I very much doubt literal dream entities, Wizeman especially I don't think, would be involved. I looked at it from the actual story aspect, which has Sonic, Tails, Amy and Knuckles involved: the latter three are brainwashed, I don't think Shadow would standby for that, nor would Robotnik miss an opportunity to brainwash him. I put it before Sonic Adventure 2 due to the same reasoning as Sonic Advance (only those four, area seems to be Station Square but this one was confirmed as Casinopolis), and Sonic's SOAP shoes. Indeed, a floating title, can't really definitely put it anywhere, beyond before it's sequels, and even then... This is reasonable, it does say Sonic travelled to West Side Island for the start of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, why if he's already on the island. Fair play, headcanon culled.
That was the only place on the timeline that I was able to fit Sonic Chronicles into without assuming Eggman lost the battle post-game. If I fit the game into the period when Eggman Nega appears (and makes a lot of time travel, as he is from the future), I would have to assume that Eggman lost the battle after Chronicles, because otherwise there would be no reason for Eggman Nega to change the present . Just thinking about time traveling and inter-dimensional changes, I agree that it doesn't make much sense to put Chronicles in there. My reasoning was that Chronicles WOULD have happened if Eggman hadn't made that Chaos Control, as an imaginary event (a what if scenario). And anyway, Eggman split the planet using space-time shenanigans and that didn't wake up Dark Gaia, so something weird could/should have happened. But I accept suggestions as to where it would be best to fit the game. This always bothered me, but I couldn't find a better option.
It's always a bit unclear on what exactly he did. Some think he's warped the world, split in the sense of separated but not physically split, so Dark Gaia wasn't awakened as the Earth was otherwise intact.
So interesting possibility that Omega was built in the Gimme Shelter before being taken to guard Shadow...
I don't remember if this was already discussed here, but could someone translate this? Is it true that Blaze's profile in 06 states she uses the Sol Emeralds?
The very first words on the very first line mention them, funnily enough. Spoiler: raw text in the image, in case someone wants to translate the whole thing later 「ソルエメラルド」(カオスエメラルドと対になるアイテム)を操り、かつ守護する役目を担う。 普段は沈着冷静だが、実は秘めた熱い感情を持っている。 自分に厳しいところがあり、他人に対しても人見知りをするプレイズだが、行動を共にするシルバーには仲間として、また弟のような感情を抱いている。 Relevant bit is as follows: That particular sentence also shows up in that leaked '06 script almost verbatim in the Japanese side, so that's probably why it's so familiar.
We've discussed it a couple of times and I think we checked the actual manual as well to confirm the Sol Emeralds are also mentioned there, so it's not just advertiser error. Edit: to add to that, said translation:
