The Sonic the Hedgehog Continuity Thread of Love and Timelines

We were talking about X-Zone, not the moon zone. Obviously the moon zone is on the moon.

 

Then no, the X-Zone is a space station orbiting the Earth, since you see the Moon in the distance when Sonic turns Super and gives chase.

 

I'm not sure that Tornado means anything. It popped up in Shuffle, Rush Adventure and others, and they clearly take place after SA1.

 

My post was just about breadcrumbs Sonic Advance had that could have been used to set up an explanation for the moon being fixed (although of course, the game does not use any of these breadcrumbs and ignores explaining the moon entirely). So even if the X-Zone isn't 100% on the moon, it was close enough to the moon that it could have been used as a breadcrumb to assist in an explanation (but again, the game wasn't interested in explaining anything).

They could have just put something in the manual like "After Sonic's last adventure, the Chaos Emeralds are scattered in outer space, their energies revitalizing the moon. Dr Eggman is launching his space base to hijack this energy and the Emeralds. Stop his evil plot!". But instead, they didn’t address the damaged moon at all, even though the game had plenty of material that they could have used (And then, like I said, Cream pops up in SADX muddying the timeline altogether).

 

Oh, that wasn't me suggesting that the JP manual plot is worse for not being compatible with the Origins Sonic 1 plot, simply an observation that making Sonic 1 the first chronological Sonic/Eggman conflict does unexpectedly have impacts on stories coming after that game.

Following this line of thought, I wonder whether Amy has history with Sonic pre-CD, and whether this is something that was envisioned or even thought about back during CD's development. While there's a suggestion that Sonic is well-known as a hero in the setting presented in the 90s manuals, I think in either continuity, Amy presents an interesting case due to her tarot cards. Did the cards tell her she was going to meet Sonic specifically, or just her special one? In either case, did she already know Sonic? The Origins CD intro shows a generic knight in her tarot reading, but she's already at Never Lake when performing said reading, so logic follows that isn't the reading which took her to Never Lake.

Don't know where I'm going with this really, just idle musings.

Anyway, on the placement of Advance in relation to Adventure 2, I imagine it comes afterwards officially. Not only does that match release order, but the Tails' 30th Anniversary Special that released last month strongly implies that the SOAP shoes were used by Sonic specifically to practice rail grinding. Given that Advance has him in his normal kicks, it'd make sense for it to take place after Sonic has mastered this skill.

 

Ah, sorry, it seemed like you were using both in conjunction.

The manual really doesn't got into detail about Amy. The most you get is her character profile, which only suggests that the cards told her to go to the Little Planet, but nothing about a meeting with Sonic:

The way that reads to me is "she read her cards that told her to go to the Little Planet, where Sonic just so happens to be going himself, so perhaps it's fate?"

Nothing about her knowing who Sonic is either, she may just be a girl who became smitten at first sight.

Hey, better than another fight.

I'd chalk that up to IDW only, but the games do supply some evidence, if circumstantial: specifically, Classic Sonic can't grind in Sonic Generations, he rolls along the rails instead.

I'd rather it be pre-Sonic Adventure 2 myself, just to keep that fan theorised thematic connection with Sonic Adventure and have them remain in Station Square for that period of time, that tie to Sonic Shuffle, and otherwise keep the four cast together before the cast starts growing with Cream, Shadow and Rouge. But it's a basic plot with no actual ties to anything, so it wouldn't hurt to have it after Sonic Adventure 2.

I would otherwise argue against using Sonic grind-railing as evidence, since Amy can also use the grind rails and a common counter to my pointing out Tails doesn't have his abilities in Tails' Adventures as part of it's prequel premise instead of the Sammy SEGA position after Sonic Origins is that gameplay mechanics don't count as evidence of timeline positions.

 

That is an interesting observation because Flynn has said he thinks Advance happens before Adventure 2 because of the moon thing. I guess he wasn't thinking too hard about the timeline of the Advance games when writing the Tails book.

 

I also had this idea that Amy went to Never Lake due to tarot readings telling her she might have a fateful encounter there.
IMHO the Origins CD intro cutscene only had her do the reading near Never Lake so as to not depict her doing it elsewhere.
I also think it'd be easy to state she didn't know Sonic before CD and that she got smitten with him from then onwards ^^"

 

Since there's apparently a Lore team, it might be he thought it was before Sonic Adventure 2, but the lore team have decided to place it after and he wrote it to reflect that?

That's a valid interpretation, since the 'fateful?' part is fairly ambiguous.

"Go to the Never Lake, where you will have a fateful encounter!"
But was it fate that brought Sonic there? Or was the encounter with Metal Sonic?

 

I think the only thing that bothers me about Tails not knowing Sonic before S2 is that his design was created in mind with him being a fan. Hence him getting similar shoes/gloves but them ended being too big so he ended up using those Grey straps to adjust them.

Granted, there's nothing in the Origins cutscene that says Tails wasn't aware of Sonic, but I do hope it's something that doesn't get retconned.

 

I don't see why the Sonic Advance true final boss can't take place on a track that runs parallel to the hole in the moon if that makes sense.
Honestly I'd rather they just give us a bloody explanation that says the moon is fixed now. Maybe debris from the ARK's outer shell was pulled into its orbit and patched up the hole or something.

 

That Tails Anniversary Comic has a part where Sonic expresses surprise people have heard of him, and since his and Robotnik's first fight was South Island now, I don't think it'll be retained...

Spoiler

*whispers Chaos Control by Sonic*

 

I have a question about the Sonic CD manual/Origins cutscene accuracy thing.

Where did Amy first encountered Sonic? I've seen some people mentioning her tarot cards telling her to go to Never Lake, but she's already there in the Origins cutscene. But I've also seen other people say she was destined to go to Little Planet instead, and we indeed see her at the end of Palmtree Panic Act 1.

So which one is correct?

 

From the look of it, she met him on Palmtree Panic on the Little Planet.

Since Sammy SEGA are forcing this continuity change, she was at Never Lake when the Little Planet arrived. So apparently she spent a full month there, since the Little Planet leaves the second Sonic frees it...

But neither cutscene shows him encountering her, so the first meeting is up on Little Planet still.

You could also say she was just reading tarot at that point to pass the time and got the initial message to go to Never Lake as it was in the manual.

 

Why do you keep saying Sammy SEGA? Is it to draw a distinction between pre-merger and post-merger Sega? TBH, I don’t think it had that big of an effect on Sonic continuity. I doubt Satomi is calling up Iizuka saying, “BlackHole’s almost figured out the Sonic lore, time to piss him off!” Lol.

 

Pretty much for the distinction between the Manual canon and the current choices.

 

Ah, figured. Maybe just “modern Sonic Team” then? At first I thought you just screwed up SegaSammy but I know you are too familiar with this stuff to make that mistake.

 

Thank you for this, hopefully the thread will be more readable now.

 

The issue seems to be people confusing, “I don’t care that this breaks continuity,” with, “This hasn’t broken continuity.” For example, the Origins cutscene for 2. It clearly tells a different story than the manual. Even if the message is ultimately comparable (bullied kid finds a role model in Sonic), the events ARE indeed different.