I only agree to an extent, because I love the new Modern gameplay, but I really do wish X-treme would have happened just so I could have played it. It actually looked pretty awesome.
It bothers me too, but I always had a few theories I could try to infer based on the material given in the games. 1. Booby traps is an interesting one... 2. If the scale of the danger at large is too big too ignore (as in, the entire planet or all life could be at risk), then Knuckles might leave his duties to pursue the bigger threat at hand. That makes sense for games like 06 and even Shadow's game, but not so much for games like Heroes, where the threat was no bigger than what Eggman did in the classic titles. 3. If the Master Emerald is not in threat of being stolen again, then maybe Knuckles can afford to step away for a while. After trying to many times, I don't think Eggman cares about the Master Emerald anymore; especially considering how much messing with it backfired in Sonic Adventure. Eggman trying to steal it again in Sonic Adventure 2 just seems forced, but he probably did it for insurance against things like Shadow and Bio Lizard/Final Hazard rather than his usual reasons for stealing it. But while being smart enough not try the same thing "twice" might be true for Eggman, it'd still be risky. Anyone, including new enemies, could be after the Master Emerald, thus making it's possible theft impossible to predict. Also, you have to wonder if Knuckles would think that deep into it or not. 4. This last one is a REAL stretch, but follow me on this.... Knuckles can leave the island AND carry the Master Emerald with him. Since the state of Angel Island wasn't brought up much in Sonic Adventure 2, I kind of want to believe that it's not about having the Master Emerald on the island where it belongs, but rather about making sure the Master Emerald can disperse/circulate its energy through the Shrine, the Hidden Palace Zone, and the various "life veins" of Angel Island. So, as long as it's in one piece, all will be fine. And if I am remembering correctly, there was a cutscene in one of the 3D games where Knuckles mass-shifted it seemingly out of nowhere. He reached around for it, it started off small, and then it grew into full size. The Master Emerald can shrink into travel size. Buuuuuuuut~ This could just be reading too deep into it. After all, Knuckles has finally accepted Sonic and Tails as his closest friends and has learned to stop falling for Eggman's lies. Having adventures with his buddies is the least Sega could do for us. Do we really need a reason? He is one of the popular main characters, after all.
Isn't that pretty much exactly what happened in Sonic & Knuckles? Knuckles is off setting up booby traps for Sonic and while they are distracted and fighting Robotnik finally finds the entrance to the Hidden Palace and steals the Master Emerald before the final levels. Since this is his first time doing so they have a much easier time catching up to him as he can't get that far away from them having stolen it with them present in the adjoining room.
Yeah, the Master Emerald mass-shifts in Sonic Adventure 2's Last Story, so it looks like he literally pulls it out of his ass. Whether that's a presentation choice or an actual ability of his I'll leave to fanwankery. If he can't actually lug the thing around I assume he's not only got booby traps, but also since generally Eggman is the only one who try to mess with it anymore so keeping tabs on him is almost as important as watching the emerald itself, and therefore the best course of action is to follow the path of destruction Sonic leaves behind. Knuckles has given Angel Island a sort of "not to be fucked with" reputation so I imagine the majority of the human populace just leaves it alone while every single supervillain we've seen try to steal/smash it has managed to do so with Knuckles right friggin' there anyway. He's also got his innate ability to track it down as seen with the radar he's had every single other time it gets shattered into pieces, so I assume even if some low-level crook archeologist tried to sell it on the black market he'd just be able to track the thing down and pummel the responsible party anyway.
What did Knuckles even want the chaos emeralds for at the start of S3(K) anyway? Can't say I'd ever figured that one out.
Well, the Floating Island appeared to be lacking its own Emeralds if Hidden Palace Zone at the start of MHZ in S3&K is anything to go by, so maybe Knuckles wanted Sonic's Chaos Emeralds from South Island in order to jazz up his pimpin' room. The questions then are how did they get into the Special Stages, why didn't Knuckles have his own set of Chaos Emeralds, or if he did, where did Sonic's set go, and so on until all of our brains are wrapped in horrible knots. :S
Knuckles didn't seem to want the Chaos Emeralds so much as he just didn't want Sonic to have them. Eggman had convinced him Sonic was a thief. If Knuckles had been watching them approach Angel Island's shoreline the entire time, he also probably saw that Sonic used the (presumably stolen) Chaos Emeralds to turn himself a floating sparkly golden hog of death. Obvious solution was to disarm him and make sure his "weapons" were way the hell away.
I think this again shows how good Fleetway's STC explains all this; Sonic collected his set in the Special Zone [which had its own back story], and Knuckles had his set - to which there were once only 1 lot of Chaos Emeralds, to which Robotnik merged them together etc. etc. I don't know where the Master Emerald came into it though.
Haven't you seen Christmas with Sonic? Knuckles put up a sign that said "Lick me I'm delicious!" It stopped Rouge and that... echidna... thing... why wouldn't it stop anyone else? Seriously, though, this is one of the biggest things they've never explained. He could have had the Chaotix watch over it, but that wouldn't make sense in Generations. There are some things that are better left unexplained, I suppose.
The green Chaos Emerald became the Master Emerald in STC. It was one of the 7, not an additional 8th like in the games.
Pimping my series: http://www.sonicretro.org/2011/11/how-fleetway-played-the-games-part-3-of-emeralds-and-echidnas/ (Yes, the S3&K conclusion is coming eventually. =P Was planning to do it over Easter (because lol Death Egg) but didn't pan out)
I'm not sure why people find it hard to follow, but it's pretty obvious what happens. Robotnik isn't aware of the Master Emerald until Sonic and Knuckles as he doesn't go after it in Sonic 3. He forms an alliance with Knuckles prior to the game and tricks Knuckles in to believing that Sonic is coming to invade and steal whatever treasures Knuckles has. Knuckles takes Sonic's existing emeralds which originated from Angel Island in ancient times and he hides them in the special stages. Knuckles also isn't just bound to protect the Master Emerald, but oversees the entire island. He doesn't need to be within seeing distance of the Master Emerald to do this. As a bonus, he can shrink it and take it around with him if need be, as seen in SA2.
None of that explains why HPZ had the Master Emerald and empty holders for 7 Chaos/proto-Super Emeralds. Should we assume that the second set of Emeralds collected in the S&K-based half of S3&K are a different set, and that the two sets were merged to create the super Emeralds? I see that the comic apparently did something like this, but for obvious reasons, I'm not assuming that to be guaranteed representative of the games and their writers' original intentions. Also, say the upcoming remake of StH2 does feature HPZ, about which I'm still 100% sceptical, how would that make sense when HPZ was moved to the Floating Island? Gah, this is why canon is always a bad thing.
It seems that because the Chaos Emeralds came from Angel Island that where the Master Emerald lay was where they came from in the Hidden Palace and when all set together thier size grew due to the close proximity to the Master Emerald. A major plot point of SA2 is the ME's ability to affect the power of the Chaos Emeralds, and in Adventure the emeralds are larger in the shrine with the ME too. I always assumed in S&K you just unlock the normal emeralds secret powers and grow them in to the Super Emeralds.
as for the knuckles leaving the island thing, I always just went with the idea of after Adventure, the Island never left the ground after Chaos and Tikal left the Master Emerald, and as such, Knuckles doesn't need to protect the Island the same way he used to, and so can just take the Emerald with him. At least as long as my memory is not failing me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uUJeARQsjU&playnext=1&list=PL640385FD6204EE5D&feature=results_video I can see why you don't remember it though, there's a lot of cutscenes in this game.
That's only at the end of Knuckles' story. However, we never see it leave the ground again after it crashes the second time in the Super Sonic story. I always assumed it did, since what Knuckles said indicated the island's second fall may have to do something with the Emeralds being back in close proximity with each other, but once Chaos grabbed the Emeralds and took them off the island again, the island remained grounded, so... the island being back in the sky is ambiguous at best, unless we count Sonic Advance as canon.
I think the premise alone is enough to confirm that Angel Island floated back up to the sky again. It only fell due to the events in the game, and Super Sonic stopped Chaos, so by the logic the game presents, Angel Island has nothing stopping it floating again, and I guess they assumed they didn't need to show it flying back up again with an identical cutscene, as we're meant to draw that conclusion ourselves as part of the games ending. Adventure 2 also showed Knuckles initial cutscene being high in the sky based on the surrounding view. Angel Island being in the sky is part of Knuckles backstory- if it's not in the sky there's trouble, as it was raised to make the power of the Chaos and Master Emerald unreachable by man/echidna etc. I also see no reason why Sonic Advance 1, 2 and 3 etc. can't be canon. Back in the day the GameGear games weren't canon because they literally ignored the events of the Mega Drive games and changed major plot points, but since the series unified under one umbrella and style, every game (excluding the mini games like Pinball or Shuffle) seem to have an effect on the main storyline, such as Cream being introduced. Also they link to the main series games like DX and 2 Battle on the Gamecube for extra content, which in itself isn't a hard reason, but does show the connection between the side stories and main games. The days of non-canon are over. Even Chronicles seem to be, but whether they end up retconning it out of existence in future is another matter, as they certainly haven't bothered with a sequel. All they really need to do is create a game like Sonic Unleashed where in the opening they're fighting Eggman from the end of Chronicles and they can totally ignore having to make a true sequel.
Sorry, I can't edit my previous psot on this work computer. Having just posted my previous one, after a bit of thought, I suppose there's actually evidence for and against Angel Island being back in the sky, as Sonic Battle calls it the "Holy Summit" and it's seemingly connected to the land... Sonic Advance 3 also comes after this, but it's then entirely possible that it's just very high in the sky, but not actually levitating above ground- like a very high mountain. But then, that begs the question- why does Angel Island Float without the Chaos Emeralds after Sonic 3 & K when Sonic has them? Just another potential plothole that could be explained if SEGA weren't so vague.
