The Japanese Sonic 4: Episode II website refers to it as "the planet where Sonic and his people* live". *The phrase used is ソニックたち, Sonic-tachi: https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2017/08/tachi-meaning-pluralizing-suffixes.html It's not. It's directly from Sonic Team. That's why Iizuka has said so several times over the past 10 years. That's why it's casually mentioned on the JP Sonic Forces website. That's why the IDW comic, which goes through Sega of Japan for approvals, follows the same premise. You're putting way too much stock in a generic background element seen for 3 seconds in a cheapo slideshow cut scene. (The rocket doesn't even fly from that planet, just past it). The world maps in Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Forces are all completely different anyway. Sonic Rivals 2 also explicitly says that Silver is from the future, so it's clear what he means from context. Sonic Forces says Sonic is from another world, with no additional context. That's because, in the current story, he is literally from another world. That's why the Phantom Ruby is a new and unknown thing to the Modern Sonic cast, the events of Sonic Mania didn't happen on their world.
Keep forgetting that game exists. I'll have a translator run through, I can quiz them on the meanings of things and Google Translate sometimes doesn't do it right. Thank you for the information. Oh good, now we're back to square one of this. And here I thought we could absolve Iizuka. Do you have a link to the Sonic Forces Japanese website? There's also apparently something about the word 'sekai' that can mean a lot more than just 'world'. See back to the Sonic Rivals 2 Silver examples. Indeed, the planet's layout changes as frequently as Hyrules. But the intention is still the same: someone has to have made that image and have approval from Sonic Team to put it in. That's not a stock image, that's new and it depicts Earth, not a random landmass on a blue sphere. Eh, again, Sonic Mania is a funny one. I'm not sure if it happened or if the cast was under a mass illusion, especially due to the Knuckles cutscene. They also don't say anything about it being a new thing in Sonic Forces, just mysterious, as far as I recall. And yes, yes, I'm sure the comics make it clear it's 'new'. Honestly, I'm kind of wondering if the Phantom Ruby of Sonic Mania was a prototype that got loose and sent back in time somehow. But that thought's for later.
Oh good, now we're back to square one of this. And here I thought we could absolve Iizuka. Do you have a link to the Sonic Forces Japanese website? There's also apparently something about the word 'sekai' that can mean a lot more than just 'world'. See back to the Sonic Rivals 2 Silver examples.[/QUOTE] Well, sekai can mean world, society, planet, ect, but Ian Flynn has confirmed that it is two separate planets according to Sonic Team. Now, whether or not this was something established by the team itself or mandated by the higher-ups at Sega (and by that I mean Sega Sammy of Japan, SoA has very little to no say in this) who want to draw fans of Sonic X or the new movie into the franchise remains to be seen. As I've probably said before in this topic, I think it's the latter rather than the former given Izuka's prior comments about Classic Sonic no longer being a thing after Adventure shortly before Generations and the instances where they openly appealed to fans of mario when a game was exclusive to Nintendo consoles. The main takeaway though is that SoA literally has nothing to do with this and Izuka might not have anything to do with this. The people who established the series bible back in the 90s were long gone by the time anything like this showed up in the games. Aaron may have had a say on the Forces script (I believe there's comments signed AW in there) but it doesn't seem to amount to much at all. Edit: Also, since the other thread got merged into this one, I do want to echo a sentiment someone else brought up about being so defensive about this BlackHole. I think a lot of us generally hate what's happened to the continuity and do agree that it's kinda dumb, but there's not much we can do about it without veering into headcanon. No need to go on the defensive about this, we're on your side, really.
I don't know why people are so intent on doubting something that's been stated plainly and explicitly multiple times from multiple sources. At this point you may as well argue that "Green Hill" actually means "Blue and Yellow Hill" and it's all been a huge misunderstanding. 34:45 In 2015 Aaron said that there are two worlds, "Sorta similar to Sonic X. That's how the Sega of Japan created games, for the most part, fit into".
I'm more trying to find as many loopholes as I can so that we can go back to being one world. Thus far, I've found they're vague in their wordings, allowing some semblance of leeway. I have the translation, incidentally: The planet where Sonic and Co. live, not Sonic and his people. Because we don't like it and know SEGA of Japan don't give two flying sheep about the western fanbase, so this is all we can do to limit the damage on our side? Wasn't there a SEGA of Europe representative that said something opposing this, that the games are all one world and just set in different locations?
"We" can't do anything. We're not in charge of the series. We don't make the rules. It is what it is. Same diff. You were talking about how Japan doesn't use the term "Sonic's world". "The planet Sonic and his people/friends/peers/group/co live" is for all intents and purposes the same as saying "Sonic's world". That would be very, very strange phrasing if the planet was Earth. No. Kevin Eva, SOE community manager around the time of Sonic Generations, said that the two-worlds thing wasn't something he'd been informed of. But it was something Takashi Iizuka mentioned in interviews in 2010, was in the series bible around 2012, was re-confirmed by Aaron Webber in 2015, was alluded to on the Sonic Forces website in 2017 and is still confirmed to be the case in 2020.
No, but we do provide the sales and free advertisement. So we are providing something to the series. It is indeed weird wording, but so's calling a future time period a "world". Still, fair game. Series ended with Sonic Unleashed and Sonic and the Black Knight, got it. Well at least Robotnik finally got to build Eggmanland before it.
..I do not know why so many people think America decides any of this stuff. I saw some picture on Twitter yesterday that was trying to ascribe different creative choices to America v Japan and my soul fully left my body.
Yeah this is pretty much where I stand on this. I simply just accept that it’s broken beyond repair and I don’t feel a need to fix it in my head. It also helps that I haven’t played a new Sonic game since Generations (besides Mania), and while I’ve seen cutscenes and know the general stories of Lost World and Forces, I just don’t feel a need to make it all fit in. This might sound harsh to say but I kinda view Lost World and Forces to just be “meme games”, I don’t take them seriously. It’s definitely not the same series as the Adventure games I grew up with. And yes, I grew up primarily in the Adventure era, with Adventure DX on the Gamecube being my first Sonic game, so you’d think I’d care about the continuity too, but I don’t. To be more specific I do care about the Adventure-era continuity, but I don’t care about trying to shoehorn games like Sonic Lost World and Sonic Forces into that same continuity. Maybe I’m not a “normal” Adventure-era fan since I was exposed to the classic games through Sonic Mega Collection and came to the conclusion that Sonic 3 & Knuckles is the best 2D platformer of all time well before I knew that much of the internet seems to agree with me (either that or Sonic 2, which is pretty great as well).
You misunderstand - I do care about lore and characters and continuity. I just think there's a limit to how much you should care about it.
The world's gone topsy-turvy. Back in the Dreamcast days, people didn’t want to accept that Mobius was something made by SoA and wasn't a part of Sonic Team's games. And now people don’t want to accept that the two worlds is not made by SoA but comes from Sonic Team. It's all upside down!
To be fair, the Two Worlds were made by SEGA of America (Earth and Mobius), then removed from continuity, then Iizuka became Head of Sonic Team and made two worlds once more (Human World and Sonic's World). Clearly the Humans are freaking out about the blue alien running around their lands randomly. Also, I've heard that the Human World isn't Earth, either? That's just something someone told me, not sure how accurate that is if anyone has anything for or against it (though the fact we've not seen Earth since Sonic Unleashed might hamper that).
These aren't equivalent concepts. I don't believe any reference is made to where Kintobor hails from in the SOA Sonic bible. In the SOA promo comic, Kintobor does imply that he's from Earth and not Mobius, but there's no indication that these two planets exist in alternate dimensions, which is Sega's current story. In the British Stay Sonic book, it's explicitly stated that Mobius is a distant planet in the same universe as Earth, a premise that is carried over into the UK Sonic the Comic. How did you reach that conclusion?
It didn't. It's 117,63222 light years from Earth, but you won't find it since it's in a parallel dimension made up of dark matter. I'm being sarcastic, in Man of the Year they're clearly celebrating Sonic the Hedgehog. Speaking of... Even has the eyes in a similar v ^ style.
STC was inconsistent with it. In one story Amy and Tekno try to get back to Mobius in a spaceship, and stop by Earth to ask for directions.
Considering they were established to have been lost, most likely case is they wouldn't have been able to find it. They're simply warped back to Mobius in the next issue, so we'll never really know. EDIT: Indeed, as I recalled after posting, the first issue of the preceding story line has them warped to "another dimension!" So Mobius is still a parallel dimension in this continuity.
I do think Mobius is a official thing in the game's judging by Spinball's JP Manual "This is planet Mobius, the star of peace..." This is said in a introductory way meaning Mobius is a completely separate planet in the games and Sonic only goes to Mobius just to save it from Eggman's invasion. However this could be the Japanese writers trying to tie it into the actual lore despite Spinball having AOSTH and SatAM character's in it.
Parts 2 and 3 of that STC story, and following Earthbound story, contradict the dimension angle. They're on "the other side of the galaxy" and try to fly back to Mobius in a spaceship, then are teleported back with a machine that can transport them to "any planet in the universe". The next Earth story goes back to being another dimension and the other side of the galaxy. It's an inconsistency, sloppy continuity. And it's all irrelevant to SOA's handling of the series, where Mobius was the only planet that mattered and no dual-dimension angle was present.
Apparently, Mobius is considered the "Mars" of Sonic's Dimension. But they were on the other side of the universe. They just weren't on the right dimension. They got zapped into the dimension by Tekno's device, and when they get zapped back the Human helping them says it was Tekno's work. Smart money says Tekno would do something to get back into the dimension they'd need to get in. Just because they don't mention it every second doesn't mean it's not still a requirement. We got enough of repetitive details with Shortfuse, thank you much. And it's far more consistent than the current Sonic works, barring the eyes sometimes changing colour, so...
