So, just a random thought that's been going through my head. What's the deal with the emeralds in Sonic 3, and the super emeralds? In Sonic 3, he starts the game by turning super and then getting the emeralds knocked out of him by Knuckles. This presumes that he kept the West Side Island emeralds after the end of Sonic 2. But wait, didn't he return South Island's emeralds back to it in Sonic 1? He's never explicitly shown doing so in Sonic 2, but for consistency's sake, shouldn't Sonic have done that? Was he so drunk on his newfound power that he refused to return the emeralds to their rightful place, instead selfishly keeping them for his own? The Sonic 3 prototype intro does not have him turning super, and he does not get any emeralds knocked out of him, so perhaps the emeralds in Sonic 3 were planned to be just one set of the Angel Island's? I'm also wondering, were the super emeralds introduced as a result of splitting the game? They (and the hyper forms) feel so out of place, not to mention the flashing palettes are annoying and the extra abilities feel extraneous. I just don't like having the emeralds stolen from me once I reach Mushroom Hill and having to collect them all over again.
Honestly, I think they added the Super Sonic opening to make the game more cinematic and have Knuckles make a big impression on players. What better way to do that than knocking the invincible transformation from the previous game? And I guess that does mean that originally Sonic did decide to keep the emeralds to himself this time. Yes, they were created to have players collect another set for the S&K half of the saga.
The way the S1 emeralds behave in the ending doesn't seem like Sonic was willingly using/returning them. [+] He's visibly in awe as they swirl up, then looking around surprised after the light fades and the flowers appear. It always read to me as if he realized something was about to happen, pulled the emeralds out, and just watched them do their mystic things.
Not the person you replied to, but I’m not buying that crap until the bugs get addressed. I was totally hyped for it until I watched a live stream of S3&K on release day and the streamer ran into so many bugs. I think it’s perfectly reasonable for OP to not have played Origins considering the state it’s in.
I have never gotten the impression there were more than one set of chaos emeralds, but instead just seven, period. The fact of the super emeralds is to give Angel Island its own set of emeralds. Also, I think I recall in Sonic Adventure Tails mentioning there's only seven chaos emeralds. I'm too tired to be bothered to look for it at the moment. But I'm fairly certain that happened. As for not giving emeralds back, I don't know we've ever gotten an explanation of what happens with the emeralds between games. I doubt they gave it a lot of thought. But having Sonic already possess them at the start of Sonic 3 tells me they wanted to clearly establish that the story was picking up directly after Sonic 2.
Going by the S1SMS ending, I assume that Sonic wasn't "returning" the Chaos Emeralds, but using their power to restore South Island and get rid of the pollution. The 16-bit ending also implied this, by showing that their power made flowers bloom all of a sudden. The emeralds get scattered between games per Sonic Channel.
I believe I'm misunderstanding, but I always thought the Super Emeralds were upgraded Chaos Emeralds, not another set that exist in another dimension. To me, the Chaos and Super Emeralds are the same gems, with one set just being more powerful. The Super Emeralds aren't 'in another dimension' they already exist in this one as the Chaos Emeralds. Beyond that, I always saw an opportunity for the Super Emeralds to be brought back by scaling back the Chaos Emeralds. In my eyes, the Chaos Emeralds should only allow for a few things like teleportation, while the Super Emeralds should've been given the abilities the Chaos Emeralds later got like time travel. But I suppose having to get both sets would've gotten annoying very quick, oh well...
Honestly I don't think the developers put much thought into the implications of this. But I still think it makes sense with Sonics character. In Sonic 1 he doesn't really understand what the emeralds do. In the original ending they go up and presumably make the island better. He has no idea why or how. Then they vanish. It's not like he gives them up. They do it of their own accord. But he doesn't really seem to mind either way since he doesn't really understand what they do. In the Origins ending they fly off and he is presumably running after them. So in the context of Origins he never wanted to let them go. In Sonic 2, he discovers that the emeralds can make him transform to Super Sonic. So yeah he actually does decide to keep them. Lol. And I actually like this story beat that Sonic is a little power hungry in this sense. It makes a bit more sense for Knuckles to distrust Sonic because when he first encounters Sonic he sees that he has been hoarding the chaos emeralds. Origins actually plays into this by having Eggman play up that Sonic stole the chaos emeralds. It's not entirely wrong. And unlike Sonic, Knuckles actually does return the Chaos Emeralds to the island rather than keeping them to himself to fight Sonic. There's the question of Knuckles collecting the emeralds in his run but honestly I think they just didn't think that through.
That is, until you play Sonic Spinball, which apparently went to a yard sale of blue emeralds and bought 16 of them.
I have always felt it is a wonky concept to get the emeralds and be able to turn super form and then if you choose in MH, you get them taken away along with your power (while newer players would take the bait anyway and lose it all without realising at first). So, Super Sonic in intro ----> lose emeralds and progress like normally while collecting emeralds ---> gain Super Sonic form ---> lose emeralds and super form again ---> collect super emeralds but not before Mushroom Valley. Really weird. I think I've commented on that in the past somewhere here. Although, I do think the first super emerald ring being in MH is kind of cool because Knuckles appears to be protecting that “hidden” (read: not actually hidden in-game) super emerald ring location. Makes for an interesting narrative but I have always felt there may have been a more straightforward way to handle the emeralds vs. super emeralds in that respect.
Interesting. I always figured it was the same day. Which, if all that was happening consecutively, surely Sonic and Tails would be overdue for a vacation.
Not quite. There's an unknown length of time between Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic the Hedgehog 3. There is at least a few days, as established between the Death Egg impact and Sonic and Tails learning of the situation. Spoiler [/quote] After Sonic 2's Adventure... Dr. Eggman's fortress, Death Egg, which was thoroughly destroyed by Sonic in the last adventure, is now beginning to crash to the ground. Now, closer to the ground, in the path of the falling Death Egg, there was a huge chunk of cloud floating in the air. And hidden in that cloud was a huge shadow... A towering mountain range, spread out woods... the shadow was an island. It was a huge "floating island" drifting in the air. The fireball that was the Death Egg crashed into the "floating island." The mountains crumbled, the woods torn down. The tremendous impact caused the "floating island" to tilt and its altitude to decrease. Finally, the floating island collided with the sea surface. It caused a huge wave that could be called a tsunami, but it did not sink to the bottom of the ocean. Holding the Death Egg, it remained slightly above the sea, as if nothing had happened. Sonic and Tails's Journey A few days later... An island far away from the place where the collision between Death Egg and the floating island took place. Tails, a two-tailed fox, had caught the sudden onset of a powerful Chaos Emerald signal with the Jewel Radar he had invented. He felt that it might have something to do with the last megatsunami, so he went to the beach where Sonic was. At that time, Sonic was taking a nap on the beach when he found a small ring washed up along the shore. The small ring was engraved with what seemed to be ancient characters. When he picked it up, he remembered an old legend about an "island." A long time ago, when the island was still part of the continent. There lived a people with a superior civilization. That civilization had built a peaceful and prosperous society with the energy of a certain "power stone." One day, however, a group of elders who wanted to make the energy of the power stone their own accidentally let the energy run wild. In an instant, civilization was destroyed and disappeared from history. It is said that after this event, the gods descended from the sky and restored a part of the civilization as an island and released it and the "power stone" into the sky. The legend of the "island" and the ring that washed ashore... For some reason, Sonic felt nostalgic and decided to go on another adventure.[/quote] Key lines: Dr. Eggman's fortress, Death Egg, which was thoroughly destroyed by Sonic in the last adventure, is now beginning to crash to the ground. -Unknown Length of Time since the Death Egg was destroyed and 'now beginning to fall', text implies some time has passed, but could be the same day, no context. Finally, the floating island collided with the sea surface. It caused a huge wave that could be called a tsunami, but it did not sink to the bottom of the ocean. Holding the Death Egg, it remained slightly above the sea, as if nothing had happened. A few days later... An island far away from the place where the collision between Death Egg and the floating island took place. Tails, a two-tailed fox, had caught the sudden onset of a powerful Chaos Emerald signal with the Jewel Radar he had invented. He felt that it might have something to do with the last megatsunami, so he went to the beach where Sonic was. -Confirms a few days pass between the touchdown and Sonic reacting, since the tsunami is the connecting context. Just to make sure the narrative of the manuals is intact. Feel free to ignore Sonic Origins.
That's what S3K shows, yes. I have no idea where the prevalent notion that the Super Emeralds are separate from the Chaos Emeralds came from.
Okay. I just watched a quick video of Mushroom Hill to confirm what you're saying. It does indeed suggest they're simply the same chaos emeralds that have gone "super". I think the assumption is the master emerald itself has "super charged" them. The super emeralds aren't visibly there until after the chaos emeralds are used. I had thought they were already visible in that scene. So there you go. I guess you learn something new everyday. More than one thing for me.
I've always loved Fleetway STC's explanation of how Sonic and Knuckles had their own set of Chaos Emeralds, when there were originally six seven of them (Knux always kept the Grey Emerald separate from the rest), and over the weeks/months the Chaos Emeralds grew back to their original size once they got merged back together again; though it was never explained how they got split up in the first place, nor is the absence of the Master Emerald explained (when Robotnik first absorbed them). So technically, shouldn't STC's emeralds be Super Emeralds then (and thus Sonic is really Hyper Sonic once he absorbed the Super-fied ones)? Obviously it's still a different universe, of course.
Chaos Emeralds sometimes seem to scatter like dragon balls after being used in yet another trope ripped from the famed manga/anime. It's not always consistent when or why, but that idea is used when it's convenient for the plot (and generally doesn't apply to Super Sonic being used in normal stages).
