Yes, 3D Blast introduced the homing attack (albeit in a very different implementation than what was used going forward), but I don’t think anyone considers Rush mainline, and that introduced the boost. I don’t think 3D Blast is mainline, but to be honest, I can’t think of any legitimate set of rules that would exclude it without also excluding Sonic 4 or Mania. It’s just a feeling I’ve got. The best I can give is that, if it is mainline, it’s the only mainline Genesis game Sega hasn’t done any work on to improve. 1, 2, 3&K, and CD have all gotten post-mortem remakes, 3D Blast only has contemporary ports and emulation. Yes, this does also exclude Chaotix. If that game was important, Sega would have rereleased it once (I don’t think GameTap counts). Jury's still out on where I think Shadow falls.
Would the distinction then be a Sonic Team product vs. Traveler's Tales? But then, Sonic Team was never the same from game to game anyway, even on the Megadrive. I guess Sonic Team is internally belonging to SEGA, so that would lean in their favour, whereas Traveler's Tales were a third-party company who just did really good work. But then, using that distinction, would we exclude Dimps work? Or would we consider that "mainline"? Sonic Team did the main games with Dimps handling the handheld ports -- but then using that distinction we might also be excluding Sonic Advance, which I don't think anyone would consider not being "mainline". Maybe there is no "mainline", and there's just a whole bunch of marketable products that can be considered or not considered each time they do a compilation. I really wish they'd re-release the Saturn or PC port though. It was a game format I would have like to see expanded and fleshed out. I wonder why the updated versions never make the cut? Is it because of the music perhaps?
I'd most definitely not count Sonic Advance as mainline. Then again, I would count CD as a born-again-mainline too. "Mainline", for Sonic, could mean "a release to which SEGA diverted its resources because it wanted the game to advance the franchise's position in the market", which is abstract enough to include basically every game if you really want to, but something inside you just tells you which ones are like that and which ones aren't.
At the end of the day, most games can be considered canon unless they directly contradict something from a 'definite' mainline game, or are clearly set in another continuity like Spinball.
I think it's just a simple case of them having an easy to emulate version of the game to distribute instead. It's why so many NES or Megadrive/Genesis ports of arcade games are rereleased over the originals as well. The Saturn version would be cool but it's hindered by the Saturn's infamously difficult to emulate hardware. They'd have to port or remake it, and while they have a PC version, it is noticably dumbed down in key areas like the special stages (which many consider the high point of the Saturn version). Besides that, 3D Blast just doesn't have the same demand as games like CD or Fighters got to be ported, simply because it already has an accessible version available on many platforms and, being a spin off, is a more divisive title (though Director's Cut with Saturn special stages and soundtrack options does sound like a rather cool project).
Bought it from eBay because it's the only working official option to get the soundtrack. Thought it'd be cool to play a few levels to get a feel for the 32-bitness. But it has none of that. It looks identical to the MD version, and the special stages are kinda ugly. It's got to be the Saturn version, trust me.
I mean, "mainline" and "canon" don't necessarily align, as has in fact been discussed in this thread before. And as the ever-wise @Laura has said, canon and mainline both make very little sense in the context of Sonic, what with both the continuity inconsistencies and SEGA not being the most rational company ever in its objectives or procedures.
I grew up on the PC port and even then I knew it was always a weird thing that existed. It has the music and general graphical style of the Saturn version but with some weird visual glitches and none of the really cool weather effects, basically making the graphical upgrades nothing more then an "HD" Texturepack. It lacks flair. Also the Special Stages feel like the equivalent of a fangame from that era, just really weird and unfulfilling. While it has better load times, it just cuts to different levels, it feels so unfinished.
The PC port being kinda botched I think is a key reason the 32 bit version never got rereleased, since like R and CD in Gems Collection, it would have been the ideal shortcut to getting round actually emulating Saturn. You can tell it was one of the earliest translations to PC, especially compared to R done later by the same company which, besides a few minor bits of graphical flair being absent, is a loyal and in places even improved rendition of the original. I do wonder if a backport tuneup mod like R and SADX got is possible with 3D Blast, likely not with the special stages of course, but the weather and texture effects possibly.
I don't class 3D Blast as a spin-off. I think it's an important game because it pretty much started the transition from 2D Sonic to 3D games. If 3D Blast had been as successful/held in the same high regard as 1, 2, CD & 3K then I think SEGA and most fans would consider it a mainline game but instead it's pretty average. I wouldn't class it as bad and I do enjoy to an extent, but it gets boring all too quickly. So I get why fans wouldn't consider it mainline.
I don't think 3D Blast being canon/mainline really matters in the grand scheme of things. I don't think any of the events in it end up being referenced again or have an impact on continuity in the games following it. The whole 'different dimension' thing with the Flickies? Never really brought up again and almost seems to be ignored in Adventure 1. The Flicky that Amy befriends seems like a character they would use if they'd want to revisit that concept, but they never really did. There's also some other slightly strange things like Knuckles being present as a Special Stage host? I'm not sure where that fits in if you were to try to snuggle in 3D Blast in the timeline sometime after 3K/Chaotix. It's things like that which make me want to classify it as more of a 'spinoff' that tries to experiment with 'collect-a-thon' aspects with Sonic gameplay in an isometric view. It's a bit of a departure from what people expected from Sonic on the Genesis. Not that it's a bad thing, but I'm not quite sure I'd label it as a mainline entry. Again though, I wouldn't stress too much about it. It's whatever you prefer!
1, 2, 3, K, [Sonic Xtreme?] Adventure, Adventure 2, Heroes, Shadow, 06, Unleashed, [Colors?], Generations, Lost World, Forces and Frontiers. These are the mainline games, and were developed and marketed as such. Shadow is ambiguous, but it was the direct follow up to Sonic Heroes, and had the full attention of Sonic Team, if I recall, even if it isn't starring Sonic. Colors is ambiguous too, if I'm being honest, as it felt like a niche, alternative release (like it's brethren on the Wii), and not a direct follow up to Unleashed, like Generations certainly was. What is tough about that though, is that Colors had a handheld release, something that other 'mainline' games of the time had as a distinct trait. To my knowledge CD was never considered the follow-up to Sonic 2, and only existed on a peripheral system (and PC) for a long time. Many didn't even actually play CD until Gems Collection. Chaotix has the same issue. It's a side game, on a side peripheral attachment, and hasn't legally seen the light of day since. Sonic 3D Blast was a side game (released on a by then 'old' system) that was obviously intended to be in supplement to Xtreme, which was effectively the mainline title for that time, even if it never released. 3D's prominence and ports were the result of a desperate marketing response to dire circumstance, not intent and investment.
It's not amazing (it's decent but the director's cut is the only way to play now), the gameplay is a large departure from the titles of the core series, and it was produced by a UK team (despite the involvement of some Japanese Sonic devs). For those reasons and the fact that Sonic Team seems to treat it as a spin-off, I see it as a spin-off. If I were to list the "mainline" Sonic titles for someone, it'd go: 1, 2, CD, 3, K, A, A2, Heroes, Sh*, 06, U, C, G, LW, F, M, Fr. *I don't know what to do with Shadow. It's a direct follow-up to Heroes and clearly builds upon what's been established in SA2 and Heroes which are undoubtedly "mainline games," but I really don't know if it counts purely because the title is "Shadow..." The expert mode also seems to lead into Shadow's status as a GUN agent in 06 as well, despite it being "non-canon" otherwise. It could just be the fact that Wikipedia classifies it as a spin-off that is influencing me. Have any ST devs said anything regarding this? I think if this ever released, I'd automatically preclude it because it had little involvement from any of the creators. I was going to say, "It wasn't Japanese," but I don't want to dismiss Mania. Though Iizuka and Hoshino seemed to play a semi-decent role in the direction Mania went, and it's not like the Mania team went as rogue as STI would back in the day regarding the official canon. Though even then, I see you didn't include Mania in your list. It is tricky to say whether it should be considered "mainline," IMO. My inclusion of it may just be my bias showing, as I can definitely see the arguments against it.
I intentionally didn't include Mania, because it was made by a separate development team. Even if it is great, it was the "other" game, as Sonic Team proper was working on Forces. As for Xtreme, having a non-Sonic Team dev team is a good point; I almost mentioned it, but remembered that it was marketed as the first true 3D Sonic game, on the new Saturn console. That might've been a big enough deal for it to be considered as a major title, hypothetically.
I've always seen it as a spin off title and I think Chaotix is as well. :P There are no Sonic 3D levels in either version of Generations or Sonic Mania, so therefore it's a spin off title.
This is extremely hard to determine in the context of a game that reportedly was conceived during the development of Sonic 3 (if Wikipedia is anything to go by) and was sure to be released for the Mega Drive when nobody knew what would come next. 3D Blast was developed by TT not because Sonic Team was working on X-Treme, but because they were working on NiGHTs (again, if Wikipedia is anything to go by), which, by the way and famously, did NOT become the basis for Sonic X-Treme. So assuming Sonic X-Treme and Sonic 3D Blast had a mainline/supplement relationship like, say, Sonic 1 had isn't very wise. They don't seem to have been related at all and in any capacity until X-Treme tanked. That, and the fact that Sonic X-Treme doesn't exist, means that if 3D Blast is a spin-off, it's not because of Sonic X-Treme.
Perhaps it was bad wording on my end regarding the implication that the two games had a more direct relationship. What I meant was that because Xtreme was the new Saturn game, it would've certainly been regarded as more of a flagship title than another game released at the tail end of the Genesis' life. By virtue of being a late Genesis game produced in tandem with the exciting 3D Saturn title, it is inherently secondary. The flagship game just never came out, so 3D was what they happened to have left. That doesn't make it a mainline game, but rather a spinoff with no expected mainline game released near it. I believe that if Xtreme ever released, people probably wouldn't question whether 3D Blast is a spinoff or not. [edit: clarity]
I've flipflopped on 3D's position in the past, but it wasn't a budget game and it was advertised as the Next Big Sonic Game, so it sounds like a mainline game to me.
It's pedantic because I basically agree 100% with this assessment of PC being a rushed port that isn't really very good, but it's only the fancy fogging effect that's missing, you do get the rain/snow from the Saturn version. But yes, you also get a few odd graphical glitches and for some reason Final Zone is missing most of its background objects. Also no music for sneakers/invincibility and yeah, those special stages are poor. I read somewhere that they were expecting Sega to give them the source code for the Saturn stages, it didn't happen, so they just threw something together as quickly as possible. I forget where I read that though!
