Please take all discussion of the "Farewell, Sonic... Forever?" video to https://forums.sonicretro.org/index...he-generations-of-sonic-fans-perception.40079 - we don't need it in two places.
Because Sonic only collects six Emeralds in Sonic 1, but seven in Sonic 2? What's the big mystery here?
Knux mentions guarding the Master Emerald in Shadow the Hedgehog, stating that he hopes nothing happens while he's away. This implies that both in ShtH and Heroes, he left the M.E. due to a clear, imminent threat. Of course, as 06 was meant to be a reboot, the M.E. simply didn't exist in 06. Blaze was in the Sol dimension until 06. During the Classic games, there was no complete, definite set of ages and heights until Sonic Jam, and even then it still wasn't completely nailed down. For example, the age of Sonic is listed as 15-16 (but only in Japan: outside it was listed as 15) There were only 6 of the 7 emeralds on South Island: there being 7 emeralds in Sonic 2 was actually to be consistent. It would explain why Sonic couldn't go Super in 1, as he only had 6 of the 7 emeralds then. In fact, attempts to maintain consistency with Super forms continued in S3&K: In some prototypes, Tails could go Super with only the Chaos Emeralds, but only his Hyper form would have flickies. This was changed to require the Super Emeralds but have the flickies to maintain consistency with his inability to go Super in Sonic 2.
Tbh that's something I like about tails's arc of growing stronger and more independent. Sonic and knuckles are just like "aw yeah, look at us, we can use the chaos emeralds to super lol, and you can't tails" (obviously exaggerated, but you get my point) And tails with his cute little courage just goes and rounds up the bigger gems and is like "look at me! I can do it too!" I always liked that. I think game apologist actually did a video on it lol
There are no heights in Sonic Jam. Tails' age was established in the JP Sonic 2 manual. Amy's age was established in the JP Sonic CD manual. Metal Sonic's height was established in the JP Sonic CD manual. Amy's age and Metal Sonic's height were changed after the jump to the "Modern Sonic" era.
Whoops, I was thinking of the Classic Sonic design specifications sheet (although a less detailed version is in Sonic Jam) which states he is 100cm tall. While Metal Sonic's height was established as ~75cm, he is clearly the same height in-game as Sonic, who is, according to the design specifications, 100cm tall. Knuckles' age was also listed as 15 in Sonic Jam, so it seems likely to me that character heights and ages weren't fully decided until SA1.
Iizuka himself said something similar at the first Sonic Boom event, stating that each game is supposed to be standalone and its own separate thing, but they put in references to tie them together as a treat for the fans. Sonic Runners illustrates this too. There's an episode where all the storybook characters come back, but Sonic doesn't know who they are. And Iizuka said on Facebook that it's because Runners Sonic is a different Sonic from Storybook Sonic. (And interestingly Omochao does make references to the events of the story book games, so I guess that's the connecting reference that's a treat for the fans). They actually cleared this up in Runners. After Sonic Adventure, Knuckles found a hidden temple to store the Emerald away. Runners is actually interesting as it seems to be an attempt by Sonic Team to clean up the continuity. We've seen that Sonic Team has been very divided in the past on subjects (such as if they should have brought Shadow back from the dead after SA2). I wonder if continuity is something they are also split on with some treating the story as a flux that they can rewrite to suit the current game and others feeling that things should be more concrete.
Wait... What do you mean by that? What did they clarify regarding the continuity? I never played Runners or checked its Story Mode, so I know little-to-nothing of it.
Runners cleared up some of the long standing continuity issues: It's explained that Knuckles has a temple to the store the ME. That's why he can go on adventures. (In Runners, the temple is breached, so Omochao and the animal friends agree to guard it from now on to allow Knuckles to travel away from the ME). The reasons we see the wisps every where is that after Sonic Colours, they decided to stick around and explore Sonic's world. The animal friends have their own society. Only Knuckles and Omochao can understand their language. It also showed that Runners Sonic and Story Book Sonic are different Sonics, as Sonic didn’t remember any of the Storybook characters, thus confirming Iizuka's comments about each game being standalone (and Iizuka confirmed on Facebook that they are different Sonics). However, Omochao recalls the role Sonic played in the story book games. And later on, Sonic doesn't remember the Deadly Six either. But then he reveals he likes to pretend he doesn't remember people, so they will re-introduce themselves.
Wait a second... Gotta go...facepalm...HARD! What the heck's with all those "clear-ups"?! They're all just different ways of "hand-waving" said continuity issues! What do they take us for? Little kids? Sorry, but such things really piss me off!
I personally really appreciated that they did go back and give explanations for these issues (although I didn’t like the idea of multiple Sonics, but I guess the Deadly Six incident gave them an out for that). It felt like they did care about this story this time and wanted to address some of our complaints, which I thought was awesome. Although, I do appreciate how the "hand-waving" aspect could be seen as annoying (and lazy to a degree), so I totally understand your irritation.
I mean, the target audience is little kids whether we like it or not... Honestly, if Iizuka wants to go the Mario route and declare the characters actors...I could live with it. I can overlook almost any story BS as long as the game is fun. So work on getting it back to being fun again, Iizuka...
I'd be disappointed if they did that. Despite all the faults, I quite like that there is a story that has been going on for 30 years, and I was disappointed when they started making them more standalone. To be honest really, I think a lot of the problems with the Sonic stories come from fans over thinking things. That's not to excuse Sonic Team because they have been sloppy in places. But at the end of the day, it's a video game series for 8 year olds, where the story is just supposed to be icing on the cake and not the cake itself. They aren't going to explain every little thing and a lot of head-canon is required to connect it all together. I often get the feeling that some fans lose sight of that and start treating the icing as the actual cake.
That's kind of always going to happen ever since the series established that it has a lore. The second you establish a mythos, you open the floodgates to fan theories and guessing. You literally can't blame or stop that, because its fandom nature to do that. Its arguably what defines being a fan of anything, overthinking and overanalyzing things. You yourself said it'd disappoint you if they went the Mario route of just making everything standalone, so you too have level of attachment. The continuity problems Sonic has are more from a lack of forethought and haphazard decisions. But its unrealistic to expect a 30 year series to maintain a rock solid continuity, but that's not going to stop fans from getting upset about it anyway. I say once more, Comic Book and Star Wars fans have been dealing with the same bullshit for even longer. Mario's approach works better for the long term, but doesn't have much investment because they actively downplay any mythos to speculate.
But there's different type of over-analysis. I don’t have a problem with people over-analysing to make sense of things as that's part of the fun. The whole process of coming up with theories and guessing adds an extra level of enjoyment. You aren't just sitting there being told a story, but actively connecting the dots that aren't just scattered in the games, but also in interviews, strategy guides and other mediums. That sort of "active connecting" creates a unique and deeper enjoyment that you just won't find in the stories of something like Mario series where everything isn't supposed to be connected. It's just when people no longer find the theorising fun to the extent that they want to drop the continuity aspect altogether, that I think that at that point it's time to step back and look at things in perspective. The story is just supposed to be icing to a video game and not a fictional novel. So I am not saying "don’t over analyse" but rather "don’t over analyse to the point that it's no longer fun and you want it to end because the over analysis has made it painful". And that's not to say it's beyond criticisms either, because obviously if it sucks, then that should be pointed out. I just think you have to keep your expectations real. And I certainly wouldn't deny my attachment. That's why I don’t want the continuity aspect to be dropped!
Yeah, those ones were from a 2008 DVD of stock art for licensees. Several of the "classic" images have actually been redrawn, so are different from those in Sonic Jam. They don't reflect how the classic characters were being treated in 1991-1997, but rather how they were being treated in 2008. It's info they were confident enough to print in manuals and such, so I'd count that as decided. They just used Sonic Adventure to re-decide a bunch of things. It was a soft reboot of sorts. Sonic's 100cm height was first mentioned in Sonic Adventure guide books, trading cards and other tie-ins. According to this article from Retro Gamer #189, it's something they had in mind while developing the game. I guess having a character exactly 1m tall was useful for scaling things in a 3D world.
Well, its easy to get more jaded and cynical the older you get and reevaluate your preferences. A lot of people who never cared much for continuity and care more about the game design will naturally be more averse to it. Like I said, it comes with the territory sadly. Sharing space with a very cynical older generation.
Seems like a leap in logic, no? The specifics of "06 being a reboot" have never been outlined, and the game itself seems to take place continuity-wise in the same world as the previous games even building off of things from previous games and using plot points from said previous games. There is no real reason to assume the Master Emerald straight up doesn't exist.
You're really tiring with this discourse, and, on top of that, you're wrong. People get attached to things, and a lot of people gets so attached to any of those things they won't accept time passes and things evolve beyond the state they were when they got attached to them. Older people are expected to learn the lesson at some point and find out which is the scope for their feelings and wishes, which is the real situation and how much of this situation is out of their control, and accept the difference. I know is hard for you to believe, but stuff like continuity and game design are things every generation can be interested on or not give a damn at all, and what Big Smile's saying is just having a healthy approach for enjoyment is allowed and adviced, it's not a choice between absolute obsession or absolute disinterest. And hey, look, surprise, that came out from some oldbie! The only difference between older and younger generations here is we had the time to show enough how mature or immature we got with time, with the shame it brings to make our faults evident. *** Extra text for everyone else: sorry for the rant and going offtopic but I had to vent that. It would probably be a better post for the "debunking" thread, but, oh, well.
Sorry if I touched a nerve, but I can't help how I feel. I am what am I am. You said it yourself, when people grow attached to something and it changes beyond the scope of what they knew it as, its natural to be averse to it. I don't see much difference in what I said, you just explained it in a way that's not as blunt and cynical. Yes, there are healthy and functional ways at experiencing a series like this; but in my over 20 year experience dealing with this series, I've seen people just bow out gracefully due to disinterest, or they're still the same passionate fan advocating for their preferences to this day. Does that mean EVERYONE is like that? Not all, I was just speaking in general. If I offended you with what I said, that wasn't my intention.
