Sorry. I know you're not serious, but I don't think those inconsistencies are comparable to the dual world plothole. Nothing says that Hidden Palace and the emerald altar from SA1 have to be the same place. We also don't know whether GUN fought Eggman or not; Forces never showed the war that took place during the time skip following Sonic's capture. We only see the aftermath, after Eggman won and conquered the world. The rest are mostly nitpicks about things like gameplay and non-story elements, but I know you're intentionally exaggerating. Just please don't treat me like I'm some young fan who's new to plotholes. Perhaps you didn't mean to, but that's the way it comes off to me. I've been a fan since the 90's, I know the series has had its fair share of retcons and inconsistencies. And I still find the dual world concept to be the worst plothole the series has seen so far, dragging 6+ games and like half the main cast into it. I don't think it started during Naka's tenure. As shown earlier in this thread, he still seemed to think of Sonic's adventures as taking place in a single planet by 2011.
I'm sorry for coming across that way. I wasn't trying to attack you specifically or assume anything about you. What you said just raised some points in my mind about a whole bunch of things, and I took that as a jumping off point and started running with them. And I disagree! But it doesn't matter, and that's kind of my point. We're arguing about whether THIS explanation breaks things worse than THAT explanation, when I don't think these explanations in or out of universe were really even intended to retroactively apply to past continuity. Let me draw a comparison. In the Donkey Kong Country series, Cranky Kong is canonically meant to be the "arcade" version of Donkey Kong. That much is (mostly) consistent. But the identity and origin of our modern-day Donkey Kong is fuzzier. We know DK Jr. was Cranky Kong's son, so did he grow up into the DKC protagonist? But in DKC2, Cranky refers to DK as his "grandson." However, in DK64, he always calls him his "son." In the more recent games, he's once again DK's grandfather, but there's never been an explanation for what happened to DK Jr. And some ancillary material (such as Smash 4's Duck Hunt trailer) seems to present modern-day Donkey Kong as if he's the SAME character as arcade DK. This is without even getting into how badly Yoshi's Island DS destroys the timeline, presenting a DKC-style baby Donkey Kong alongside baby Mario! Nintendo never has and never will make any attempt to reconcile this, because it's irreconcilable. The most they're going to do is present a more consistent version of events going forward (Cranky is DK's grandpa, DK Jr. is never addressed). Fans who are so inclined are free to speculate and come up with their own headcanon, but it would be a massive mistake for Nintendo to try to shoehorn in an explanation that reconciles all this, because it'll inevitably break as much as it fixes. And that's sort of why it was silly for Sonic Team to ever clarify "two worlds," and to offer up contradictory explanations of Classic Sonic's origins. Going all the way back to the classics, Sonic has never had a strong degree of internal consistency, especially not across eras or between different dev teams. And that's FINE in my opinion. But if in-game text is going to embrace its own fuzzy continuity and not commit to anything beyond saying "Sonic's world," then any sort of out-of-universe clarification is only going to muddy the waters.
Let's not delude ourselves: when even the most talented fan can't make sense out of it, could it be, that it's all part of a plan? Sonic Team have to do it - and by "it" I mean Sonic Adventure 3 - themselves and they won't let us interfere. A little bit of shitpost before I'm off to school.
Oh, it's a very different shape to the whatever Green Hill is part of, which appears to be separate. There's also islands sprinkled in the ocean. So this is Sonic's World. Huzzah. We're now in an alternate dimension, on a planet I couldn't care less about because I've not spent several games trying to save it, and only seen it in Sonic the Hedgehog 4, an unfinished game. Frankly I'm just confused why they don't organise an evacuation to the Human World until the Resistance can stop Robotnik, apparently travelling between the worlds is just that easy. Oh, yeah, no inconsistency. Please, explain the consistency that is the Phantom Ruby plot between Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces, because I'm still finding it baffling. And the comics just add to the confusion. And even then, they don't. Sonic's World was added in the localisation: Sonic Colours only calls it "the world". The most we get from text is Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II where it's called the planet Sonic and co. live on, which is so vague you could argue that means it's just Earth as that would still be the planet Sonic and co. live on, and Sonic Forces, which shows the planet looking fairly different to how we've seen it every other time, implying this is the mysterious Sonic's World we've never seen before. The most I could argue is maybe it's a fictionalised North America, but even then that's pushing it, even for me. Spoiler Frankly, the dual worlds is a dumb idea. Like, monumentally so. It works for adaptations like Sonic X, simply because they've not yet tied themselves to the singular world that the games did since the start and thus can do so from its inception. The games, however, are forcing a change that breaks the series. The Classic games were on Earth, Naka says so and Sonic Adventure concurs. All games up to Sonic Unleashed continue to indicate it's one planet, until Iizuka Miyamotos the franchise and throws out two decades of one world continuity in favour of a slapdash, poorly implemented two worlds concept that he has to break various games' backs to fit them in. And now they're in canon limbo because apparently those are now an alternate dimension. Clearly, this is simplifying everything for everyone. Next up, Blaze's World will have just been a continent over. But this is me just ranting at this point. Honestly, I'll just stick to Naka canon, where it makes more sense and we don't have to worry about which game is set on which planet beyond the Sonic Rush series, where they were competent in stating which world is which. So how about that Shadow the Hedgehog canon path being 'Together with Maria...' concept I posted about a while back?
Every piece of media ever is on a deadline. And tons of them take the time and effort to flesh out their worlds. That's no excuse. Imagine if George Lucas said in an interview "In the original trilogy, Darth Vader wears frilly pink bows under his helmet." There's no evidence of such in the films, and in fact we see him helmetless twice with no bows. Technically as the original creator and former owner, what he says is law, but if he did, people would absolutely complain that it's not in the film to see, and they would be absolutely justified to do so. And please don't defend devs being lazy.
@BlackHole Gonna digress a second to nitpick, it’s “couldn’t care less”. If you could care less then by definition you must care at least some amount.
Must just be something from my area since it generally sounds like people say "could care less", accents and all that. Aaand fixed.
Almost everyone working in the video game industry works ridiculously long hours - especially in Japan. Laziness isn't a factor. It's a matter of relevance. Since they implemented this change in direction (some time before Sonic Colours) stories in Sonic games have been a lower priority, more self-contained and not featured NPC humans. A scene where the characters stop and explain how Angel Island was in the human world during Sonic Adventure or how Professor Gerald got his hands on a Chaos Emerald wouldn't be relevant to the story of Sonic Lost World. The whole idea has been to get back to basics - cartoon animals fighting a mad scientist in fantastical lands.
Honestly I’m wondering how this would affect the hypothetical Adventure remake we’ve been trying to wish into existence...would references to CD and 3&K be cut? Would the humans be replaced with animals at the risk of incurring further wrath?
And so, they produced games like Sonic Lost World, with the memorable Deadly Six, and Sonic Forces, which can't even keep it's own story and world straight. Clearly, the franchise is saved from the evils that occurred with Sonic Adventure. I'd rather take Shadow the Hedgehog. At least there's attempts at creativity there, rather than Bowser-lite and the Deadlylings and the whatever-the-hell-was-going-on-with Infinite. What's the bettings that there's going to be a Green Hill Zone and Chemical Plant Zone in the next game. Probably. It's why I'd rather not get a Sonic Adventure remake, Iizuka's going to muck it up. I have no confidence in the future of the series.
Are there more attempts at creativity though? I’d argue the Black Arms are more generic and forgettable than the Deadly Six and even less cohesive with the series artstyle.
Zavok is Bowser-lite. We have no history other than they're a thing and he was tutored under another of the members. We don't even know why Zavok is the leader: is he stronger and established dominance through power? Did he lead them in a battle long ago? We don't even know their goals. They've been sat on the Lost Hex for who know how long, then decided to sacrifice a planet to gain power. Power for what? To punch one another on a dead planet? The Black Arms come out of nowhere, yes, but they make a grand entrance sacking a city and add mystery to the series by immediately contacting Shadow and calling on an arrangement made before the series. We know their goal, to control the planet use it for resources and the inhabitants as livestock, a simple goal but, y'know, an actual goal. Black Doom is the leader, it's clear from his actions and you can figure out they have some form of Queen (or King in this case) colony system. They also add some interesting mystery into the lore: Chaos Control, they know how to use it. Did they develop it or did they learn it watching Shadow? Did Shadow learn it from them? The artstyle, yeah, they could've been integrated better. But they were also using mostly realistic humans at that point: I prefer how Sonic: Man of the Year and Sonic Unleashed handled Humans, with their more cartoony designs. But considering Dark Gaia in that game, perhaps not much would have changed in the art-style?
If it's really just a matter of going "back to basics", then all two worlds does is add pointless layers of convolution. Saying "this game takes place far from human settlements were only anthros live" served the same purpose with no loose threads.
But the devs are not being lazy, it's just that again there's only so much time and money they can spend to do stuff and focus on, so extra details that don't benefit the story just doesn't make the cut. Your George Lucas example is probably the worst thing you could pick of because he's actually done this! And many times at that. In Star Wars lore there's this group called the Ancient Order of the Whills that has been around since the first drafts of the first movie. Their background has changed from a group of shamans that collected the history of the galaxy and knew the secret to the force ghost technique to being microscopic beings that controlled the destiny of every living thing. They have always been something that is canon to the movies' lore according to Lucas. And yet, we never see them because Lucas couldn't make it work without taking away time and resources from each movie he made in the saga. He knew that it would serve no purpose to add this element to something like the Phantom Menace or Empire Strikes Back because it would just be unnecessary to the story. And even when he was making The Clone Wars he still found it difficult to address this in episodes that focused on the lore of the Force because of production and deadlines. (And I can go all day about important lore stuff that Lucas has mentioned that sometimes doesn't make sense and we never see in the movies) And just like Sonic Team it wasn't because of him being lazy, is just that there's elements behind the scenes that we don't know about. Making a cutscene in a game is just not going Edit>Export Cutscene. You need to write it in a script, make storyboards, make the actual cutscene, voice acting etc etc. Again, I can't think of any game in the Modern era that would justify Sonic Team spending resources to just show the cast randomly going through a ring. Do I think that the two worlds thing is unnecessary and complicated? Yes. Do I think Sonic Team are lazy and incompetent because of it? No. As fans we need to realize that a lot of our favorite IPs are part of a corporate culture with many things at play that affect the final product. Not saying it doesn't happen, but most of the time it's not the creators being lazy or malicious but more of some element in the production process.
Let's boil this down to the base question: What benefit does the Two Worlds Scenario add to the series that they couldn't achieve with the 'Mobius Isles'* instead? As far as I can see, it adds continuity snarls along the entire franchise, which isn't exactly a benefit. What is such a good benefit to it that Iizuka and the SEGA Devs are pushing it onto the series no matter what? *I'm going to call South Island, West Side Island, Flickies Island, etc, the Mobius Isles, just for a collective name.
You're trying to win an argument that nobody is making. Nobody's saying that it makes perfect sense with the series continuity or that it was the best solution. They're saying it is what it is and these kinds of sweeping retroactive changes aren't uncommon in long-running IPs. Discussing the behind the scenes hows and whys of creative decisions isn't an endoresement of those creative decisions.
This is something I’ve been asking myself to be honest. I can see why they’d want to only present animal people in some games, especially after the debacle of 06 - what I don’t get is why they went with such a convoluted and restrictive explanation that’s drawn ire from fans particularly with regards to the contemporary comic book.
Honestly to me it has always seemed less like "there are two worlds" and more like "Every game since 06 has been on a different planet because we don't want to be locked into something that might not work out."
To be honest I just think that they picked it because it was cool and thought they might be something we liked. Alternate dimensions and earths are really common in media so it's not weird the Sonic franchise also did it. It's also not uncommon since it seemed that past adaptations also went for Sonic's world is in another time/dimension/reality/galaxy etc etc so it's not weird to me that Sonic Team also went for that. Or perhaps the reason why that happened was because that was always the case? And sometimes I wonder if a big part of the fandom actually hates the two worlds thing. Not saying it's a small part that doesn't like it, but I have a feeling it's more about the other restrictions that influence the negativity towards it. For example, if the whole Shadow/Team Dark/G.U.N. mandate thingy wasn't a thing then I could see people not care that much if there's two earths or not.
