Tails Tube

I’m glad that the two worlds thing is over but upon reflection I’ve realized that the two worlds idea was not inherently flawed; it’s just that it was very nonspecific and underdeveloped. If you prefer to not have humans in your Sonic games than that explanation was well catered to your tastes. However if you were an Adventure-era fan who liked the environments those games took place in then you were outta luck: Turns out those games are in another world. What world were those games in? Heck, what world are we in now? How did Sonic get from one world to another? Will we ever go back to the human world? Is Sonic X a part of the main canon now? All of this went unanswered and Sega repeated the mistake they made with Sonic Adventure in the 90s: They invalidated the continuities that fans were invested in. I think that Sega had an opportunity with the two worlds idea to creativity answer these questions without invalidating the connections fans made in past games... and they blew it. They could of specified the nature of these two worlds while also giving a reason for why the human world was aware of Sonic’s past adventures in SA1. Then they could’ve fleshed out the animal world using characters from SATAM, Fleetway and other media. Maybe not right away (especially since folks were saying then that the game cast was too large) but maaan imagine how happy SATAM fans would’ve been if Forces went all in on the SATAM inspiration... basically I’m just saying that the Two Worlds concept would’ve allowed Sega to create the rich world that Flynn created in his archie run (obviously minus the Penders characters). Now the two worlds idea is so tainted that the best course of action was to revert to the Japanese Sonic world of the 90s. The world where Sonic coexisted with humans... now we just know the specifics of that world.

 

I think the two-worlds concept was doomed from the start, because Adventure 1 made so blatantly clear that it was always the same world. Sonic X changed some things here and there in order to make the two worlds possible, but the games never did.
During Colors, Generations and Lost World, the two-worlds concept was only backstage. People heard about it, but the games didn't make it clear, so everyone was just ignoring it. But Forces came and made clear that was a whole other planet, without any reasonable explanation, plus the fact the game was not good. It was a recipe for disaster.

 

Now, don't get me wrong, I think the two-worlds concept can still be implemented. Something akin to what Sonic X did.

Thousands of years ago there were two worlds, two whole solar systems if needed. One was the human world (Earth), and the other was the anthros world (whatever the name is). And for some reason they merged and stayed merged to this day. This has to have happened thousands of years ago because the whole Pachamac thing was on Earth, and Tikal even said the Chao were living peacefully with humans since then.

Does the lore have to implement the concept? I don't think so, maybe this is just over complicating things. Would this please whoever prefers two-worlds over one-world? Maybe...?

 

It's only ever over-complicated things to me. Cuz all it really does is make sure the peas don't get in the carrots, even though they're going down the same hole.

I've always wondered what was going through Iizuka/Naka's mind with the introduction of it, too. It definitely wasn't the intention of anything up to SA2, but the regions Sonic was more popular in happened to use this lore featuring Mobius that they had nothing to do with. Sooo... Maybe they tried something like it (via the 'two worlds' bit) in X as an attempt to appeal to western audiences used to that?

They did want international appeal in their big early-00s rebrand of Sonic as a multiplatform, multimedia icon, after all. Iizuka deciding that was canon to the games in the same era they were trying hard to pander to the '90s kids (the entire last decade lmao) checks out with that assumption; as does movie Sonic following that format (granted if Sega even had anything to do with that call or if it was just some random executive at Paramount's decision). All at times that seem like they were counting on western audience approval. Now of course that's just a hunch, but I can see that being what they were thinking.

Either way, it is funny that Iizuka held firmly to that thought, but caved back to the original idea, just as Naka did in 2011 (or before). And what did it do for us while it was here? Confuse fans and cause us to discourse about it like we have? Give us continuity errors we had to write around? Serve as a wall of invisible mandates for the IDW comics to fumble over? Leave Sega extremely quiet and otherwise vapid on doing anything with storytelling in the games?

What a mess. Oh well. It's over! Woo!

 

I never took 2 worlds that seriously due to the lack of explicit textual confirmation. I would have said it was more of a design philosophy thing, determining which games had earthly environments + humans and which had surreal worlds + furries, if it weren't for the fact that the only reason we knew about it was Iizuka blabbing it like a canon world fact several times.

And sure, they could have developed it into a legit thing, but I'm actually glad things worked out this way, because I think it's an inherently dumb idea. Sonic's core theme is adventure. He's not a moral crusader for peace and justice when he doesn't have to be, Sonic's primary motivation is seeing the world and being free. So arbitrarily dividing that adventure across two planets not only makes each look way less developed (in a series with already-shallow worldbuilding to boot), it only brings up questions that should never have mattered. "How does the entire cast regularly travel between planets" is a much harder question to ignore than "How does Sonic get to X location" -- Because he's fucking fast, genius!

I've been doing this Sonic podcast with some of my friends for several weeks now (I'm taking a break from editing episode 5 just to write this), and I never told either of them about two worlds, because I knew it wouldn't actually matter. I am glad to see I made the right choice (though I'll definitely bring it up in the future just because of this, lol).

This is one of my favorite fanarts in the series, because even though Sonic's lore is shallow, the sheer breadth of locations to travel makes the series' world feel huge. And while I'm not sure I agree with all the placements of things on this map, what I would not do is rip out all the smaller islands and most of the celestial objects and set them above a totally different planet for no reason.

 

I've seen people say that because the smaller islands aren't shown on the world map in Unleashed, that means they must be on a different planet, which honestly is the weirdest logic ever

Isle Delfino isn't represented on the World Map in Super Mario Odyssey, so obviously that means Mario Sunshine takes place on an entirely different planet, right??? People love to overcomplicate simple things lol

 

Actually, Isle Delfino *is* viewable on promotional maps for Mario Odyssey, and the global model on the Odyssey in game. I don't recall if it was or wasn't on the world map proper, but I digress.

 

Even in Sonic X, the dual world thing created plot holes. You had problems like Gerald studying the Chaos Emeralds even though they should have been in Sonic's world during his time, Eggman being born in the human world and ending up in Sonic's world without explanation, Gerald creating Shadow (an anthro), Chao gardens existing in the human world, etc.

The world map we see in Unleashed is specifically stated to be a model created by Tails, rather than the world itself. That alone explains the inconsistencies. It's conceivable that he would leave the smaller details (islands) out, especially since it was created for the sole purpose of letting them visualize the state of the world's continents.

 

And the map in Forces was created by the Resistance led by Knuckles, without Tails, which explains why is it so dumb.

So at the end of the day, the correct map is our very own Earth map, shown in Shadow the Hedgehog.

 

None of the maps in any of the games are consistent with each other so I’m not really sure why people take any of them as more than just gameplay convenience or background decoration

 

Plus the "world" in Forces was really just South Island from Sonic 1, just seeing more of the island plus the Death egg in outer space.

Eggman's base and the Grand Metropolis are even located where Scrap Brian, Starlight, and Labyrinth were located on the island.

 

I agree with both of these points. Tbc I definitely do not like the Two Worlds idea cuz as, Azookara alluded to, it comes off as a half-assed attempt to please a portion of the fanbase WITHOUT ACTUALLY INCLUDING THE CHARACTERS AND LOCATIONS, THAT PORTION OF THE FANBASE IS INVESTED IN. I think that Flynn’s current solution is the best for the reasons Shaddy pointed out... it’s just that if they really HAD to do the Two Worlds idea I wish they actually took advantage of the potential opportunities of the premise. Also I love the map shaddy linked... although it’s super low quality for me. I can’t read the text on it lol.

Josh, I just realized that I forget to address this aspect of your post in my initial response. I posted that quote from Flynn in the mania thread and I share your disappointment regarding the lack of a mania 2. Christian Whitehead recently hosted a virtual Q&A on the Sonic Revolution discord where he stated that his Initial idea for the mania plus DLC was to make more original levels instead of adding mighty and ray. Hearing that stung as it confirmed that the Mania team HAS more ideas or at the very least WANTED to come up with more concepts.

Now this is some monday morning quarterbacking here but it would’ve been in the best interest of the franchise if Mania was the only Sonic game to come out in 2017 and if Forces got an extra year in the oven. Then Whitehead and co could’ve been given a full year or 2 to make a Mania sequel, instead of rushing Mania plus out, with Mania 2 coming out in 2019 or 2020. If Sega had done this then we could’ve gotten 3 high quality Sonic games in 3-4 years WITHOUT burning out it’s employees or disappointing the fanbase. Tbc Whitehead wanting to make Mania DLC levels does not necessarily mean that he wanted to make a Mania sequel. I highly suspect that the lack of a Mania 2 is due to the Mania team justifiably not WANTING to continue participating in the toxic work practices imposed by Sega. Frankly I think a Mania sequel would’ve needed to strategically scale down in terms of levels while scaling up in other aspects to make development manageable while also creating a satisfying sequel. Imagine a Mania 2 with only 6 zones... but they’re all original along with a new Special Stage concept and Mighty, Ray and AMY added as playable characters.

 

See, but I'm glad it turned out the way it did, because not developing it as a part of the games means we can basically pretend it never happened, which I think is better than two or three games with arbitrarily different lore from the rest of the franchise.

I'd have to bet you're on mobile, right? Yeah, imgur is a pile of shit that never wants to behave on phones. Only solution I can think of is setting your browser to desktop mode and downloading the image itself.

 

Uh, was it? Where was that ever said?

 

Just compare the map in forces to the map in sonic 1 8-bit. Plus the fact that Green Hill is only on South Island.

This would also mean that Casino forest is located where Jungle zone is.

 

Color me weird, but I never read too much into the two worlds thing because Sonic Team(s) has demonstrated a very consistent pattern of rewriting and unwriting and flip flopping things in the canon, and they have shown they are more than willing to retcon whatever they see fit, bring it back later, bring it back with some changes, or come back 10 years later and claim that it was an alternate universe.

While there very well COULD have been a "two worlds" trend, I always chalked it up to a change in direction for the franchise, or Sonic games were more along the lines of an episodic TV show, where you don't really need to explain why SpongeBob and Patrick are cavemen now, they just ARE because the devs thought that would be cool.

I've found myself consistently wishing there was a more clear-defined canon, both for the classic and modern "universes", but I try not to worry about it when things start getting needlessly complicated. But in general I always believed Sonic and friends lived on Earth with the humans, and I thought they just never explained where the anthropomorphic fur creatures came from because we'll... fiction, they don't really have to.

I am kinda relieved tho, bc for some reason I really dislike the idea that Sonic and friends are aliens.

 

This clearly wasn't the intention. And Star Light Zone wasn't in the 8-bit Sonic 1.

 

I don't think the OP wanted to say that was official, only that said map fits better the one for South Island than it does for a whole world map. And no, SLZ wasn't in the 8-bit game, but I'd say it's the city next to the factory/headquarters of Scrap Brain, so, even if it wasn't present in the 8-bit game, it isn't a far fetched reference either.

 

This is why I don't really take Sonic lore that seriously anymore, because I'm well aware that it just changes at the drop of a hat, which only confuses and pisses people off and its just not worth the stress lmao.

I'm at a point where they should just hard reboot the series if you want a consistent world and lore, but they clearly don't, so I don't get the attempts at doing so and I feel like this change was only to appease the fans that have been complaining about it.