[BlackHole]

Machenstein, on 01 December 2014 - 01:07 PM, said:

What was Knuckles doing inside of that cage at the end of Triple Trouble? If Eggman put him inside of that cage, that would be reason enough for Knuckles to rebel against Eggman. Unless Fang put Knuckles in the cage so Fang could sneak away with the Emeralds. Triple Trouble's bad ending does show Fang getting away with the Emeralds instead of Eggman.

Fang was trying to sell the Emeralds to the highest bidder, Robotnik put in a bid but Sonic made off with them before the deal could go through. When Knuckles went to collect, no emeralds, angry Echidna, crafty weasel-wolf with nifty toys and an irritated Robotnik sending Badniks to go pick up a now trapped Knuckles because he doesn't know where that big energy source on Angel Island is centralized and it would be easier to trace Knuckles going to it. Sonic just arrived before Robotnik could get him out the cage. Since the plan was over, they shook hands to make both a truce and to show respect to one another before leaving the base.

Because this is purely speculation on the timeline, I'll add in some fanon in that the Atomic Destroyer is the same weapon as the two in the Death Egg's eyes, but the one in the game is being constructed off Angel Island to replace one of the damaged ones on the Death Egg. Robotnik doesn't want Knuckles getting jumpy with a weapons construction on his island with the chance of it going bang and taking out a chunk of the island. It is designed as an improvement over a design Robotnik managed to get from Gerald's Diary after hacking G.U.N, the design being a successor to the Eclipse Cannon that was never constructed as it was still under consideration by G.U.N. when they assaulted the ARK. Again, this part is fanon, you can ignore it and nothing really changes.

[Machenstein]

But was it Robotnik or Fang that trapped Knuckles in the cage? The cage was in Robotnik's base, but Fang happened to be there for some reason. Knuckles stole the Emeralds in the game's intro, but Fang had them in his possession in the special stages. It's likely that Robotnik, Knuckles and Fang were working together (hence the name Triple Trouble) but each of them had their own motivation. Robotnik wanted the Emeralds to rule the world, Fang wanted the Emeralds to get rich, and Knuckles wanted the Emeralds to distract Sonic away from the Master Emerald. So Robotnik had Knuckles steal the Emeralds and hand them over to Fang so he could distract Sonic. Knuckles and Robotnik had a common goal to distract Sonic, but Fang just wanted to get rich. Keep in mind that Knuckles had been outside of the cage throughout the entire game up until his defeat in Tidal Plant.

What I believe happened was Fang made his way to Atomic Destroyer to steal the yellow Emerald that Robotnik had. Knuckles was there to catch Fang in the act, so Fang sprung one of Robotnik's traps on Knuckles and trapped Knuckles in the cage. Robotnik had no idea this had happened since he was too busy fighting Sonic. It's obvious Aspect was pressed for time to release Triple Trouble before Sonic & Knuckles launched, so they didn't have much time to squeeze in such details. They probably didn't know Sonic and Knuckles were still enemies at the start of Sonic & Knuckles, so they had Sonic and Knuckles shake hands at the end of Triple Trouble which would then lead into Sonic & Knuckles.

This post has been edited by Machenstein: 01 December 2014 - 04:27 PM

[SpeedStarTMQ]

Mr Lange, on 30 November 2014 - 05:52 PM, said:

Sonic Adventure was the last game to even partially involve legacy canon. After that, a few games would throw some bits and pieces at us in the form of references and cameos. Then beyond a certain point, about Heroes and on, it's as if the legacy era never existed. We never see South Island or Angel Island or the master emerald or flashbacks to the Death Egg or returns to past places, nothing. Hell we don't even get references to the Dreamcast era. The modern games have created their own little reality, and are only referential to themselves. Pretty much the only connections left are some characters, rings, and chaos emeralds. While this isn't a solid reason to discount the modern games, I do consider it a firm one. Given the terrible inconsistencies between legacy and modern, and the total negligence of legacy canon, trying to regard modern elements to solve the legacy timeline is ridiculous.
And yes I know the instashield is in Sonic Advance. Like I said, I was talking about the legacy games.

I can't quite understand how you think they act as if the legacy games never existed .
Sonic Adventure to Shadow The Hedgehog was all about collecting the Chaos Emeralds, with similar themes to the original games. Sonic Heroes was pretty much all about being retro-themed with massive nods to Sonic 1 and 2. Admittedly, Sonic 2006 and Unleashed bore little similarity to any games before - even the Adventure series - but Colours and Generations both took queues from the originals, with Generations having some of the same levels. Lost World has also linked back to the originals with level art, badniks, power-ups and movesets in a big way.

Then you have the 'side games', like Sonic Advance 1,2 and 3, with Battle linking those together and featuring Angel Island, an Emerald Hill type zone, a casino, and the Death Egg.

Just because they don't mention the past locations every game doesn't mean they don't exist. I traveled to America three times up to the age of 11, but I don't bring it up - that doesn't mean it never happened. You don't see other heroes reminiscing about previous adventures, so why should Sonic be any different?

[Azukara]

-- Sonic leaves Christmas Island to South Island on the Tornado probably --
-- Eggman and Sonic's first encounter, mentioned in the JP Sonic 1 manual --
Sonic 1
Sonic CD
-- Sonic leaves South Island to Westside Island, 'Death Egg Saga' kinda happens all at once--
Sonic 2
Sonic 3K
-- maybe a month or two of silence--
Knuckles Chaotix (man, forget Iizuka, this is canon)
-- maybe a year or so, characters get a bit older, Sonic travels to the mainland, Knuckles brings his emerald outside to protect it at all times and not be in a cave all of his life --
Sonic Adventure
..and the rest of the main series follows

The 8-bit games don't even matter, and the only reason I can give for the Advance games to matter is because Cream is introduced properly there and she ends up being in the main games too. Same goes with Blaze and the Rush games, but that's more because those games were significantly decent.. and Blaze is a good character.

Sonic 4 is a split timeline from Generations, when "classic" Sonic learns the homing attack from his older self and "classic" Eggman learns none of his future plans work so he gets fed up and rehashes everything in spite to just try to kill Sonic. And that is diddly doodly that.

This post has been edited by Azukara: 01 December 2014 - 04:45 PM

[BlackHole]

Machenstein, on 01 December 2014 - 04:23 PM, said:

What I believe happened was Fang made his way to Atomic Destroyer to steal the yellow Emerald that Robotnik had. Knuckles was there to catch Fang in the act, so Fang sprung one of Robotnik's traps on Knuckles and trapped Knuckles in the cage. Robotnik had no idea this had happened since he was too busy fighting Sonic. It's obvious Aspect was pressed for time to release Triple Trouble before Sonic & Knuckles launched, so they didn't have much time to squeeze in such details. They probably didn't know Sonic and Knuckles were still enemies at the start of Sonic & Knuckles, so they had Sonic and Knuckles shake hands at the end of Triple Trouble which would then lead into Sonic & Knuckles.

I like yours better, may I use it in that project I mentioned?

[SpeedStarTMQ]

Azukara, on 01 December 2014 - 04:41 PM, said:

-- Sonic leaves Christmas Island to South Island on the Tornado probably --
-- Eggman and Sonic's first encounter, mentioned in the JP Sonic 1 manual --
Sonic 1
Sonic CD
-- Sonic leaves South Island to Westside Island, 'Death Egg Saga' kinda happens all at once--
Sonic 2
Sonic 3K
-- maybe a month or two of silence--
Knuckles Chaotix (man, forget Iizuka, this is canon)
-- maybe a year or so, characters get a bit older --
Sonic Adventure
..and the rest of the main series follows

The 8-bit games don't even matter, and the only reason I can give for the Advance games to matter is because Cream is introduced properly there and she ends up being in the main games too. Same goes with Blaze and the Rush games.

Sonic 4 is a split timeline from Generations, when "classic" Sonic learns the homing attack from his older self and "classic" Eggman learns none of his future plans work so he gets fed up and rehashes everything in spite to just try to kill Sonic. And that is diddly doodly that.

I agree with all the above.

I also had thought that Sonic 4 was a split from Generations before but didn't think the new Sonic Team had it in them to create a story as in-depth as that anymore. I mean, it makes perfect sense! Sonic Generations ends with the both Sonic's going super to the tune of the Sonic 4 invincibility theme, and at the end Classic Sonic learns a jump dash/boost very similar to the one he gets in Sonic 4 and also similar the homing attack.

We could then conclude that Sonic 4 is the result of Sonic going back to his time. Whilst Classic Sonic is said as being from 1991 on memorabilia, he already knows Tails and enters Sky Sanctuary, so we know he's actually post-S3&K. the "1991" tag is just appealing to the start date of Classic Sonic. As such, Sonic 4 could take place right from when he travels back to just after S3&K, and as a result, we also could have a few changes to the storyline from then on:

*Sonic 2006 never happens, having already been erased.
*Sonic Generations doesn't happen again.

OR

*Sonic 4 splits off in to it's own tangent, with Sonic Adventure (and so on) not occurring as they should.

As it stands, Sonic Team have previously built or hinted as similar stories which they then couldn't be bothered to develop further, like the whole Blaze/Silver future thing (Sonic Rush's "other dimension" was clearly meant to be revealed as the future. They also skimped on Shadow's back story.

This should become official so that they have an excuse to release decent 2D titles separate from the current story arc.

[Dark Sonic]

I always thought that Sega had such a missed opportunity in Sonic 4 Episode 2 (Go figure). If they wanted to show that the game was actually in the modern timeline, it would have been cool to show classic Metal Sonic in his intro cutscene, only to walk into Robotnik's robot fixer machine thing and have him come out as modern Metal Sonic. It would appear to be more of an upgrade that way.

That little omission kind of screws up the design case in Sonic 4, because if Metal Sonic was always modern, then so was Sonic, which once again leaves the plot as kind of ambiguous (but after Sonic 3 and Knuckles)

Also, speaking of Generations, I thought that would have been a great tangent to start a new classic series. With Robotnik having learned how he fucked up over all the years, he decides to try all new ideas and new machines since he learns that nothing he was going to do worked. That could lead to all new levels for Classic Sonic.

This post has been edited by Dark Sonic: 01 December 2014 - 05:01 PM

[BlackHole]

As far as Sonic 4's modern look is concerned, I've heard that they're supposed to be the classic characters but they went with the modern designs to keep the appeal to the younger audience whom wouldn't understand the change. Not sure where that was from, but I do recall reading it.

[Dark Sonic]

BlackHole, on 01 December 2014 - 05:02 PM, said:

As far as Sonic 4's modern look is concerned, I've heard that they're supposed to be the classic characters but they went with the modern designs to keep the appeal to the younger audience whom wouldn't understand the change. Not sure where that was from, but I do recall reading it.

I remember reading something about Iizuka saying that it was because Sonic 4 is a new game, so they used the current design, and if they were to remake a game that had the classic design they would reuse the classic design then. Of course, Iizuka often lies through the skin of his fucked up teeth (prob due to all the lies), so anything he says is to be taken with a mountain of salt.

Sonic's planet must be a very fucked up place by the way. How can Knuckles Chaotix, Sonic Heroes, and Sonic Unleashed exist on the same planet?

This post has been edited by Dark Sonic: 01 December 2014 - 05:05 PM

[BlackHole]

Amma take this,l then, and use it as to why it fits with the classics rather then the originals: just an art design choice and everything should be the classic design canonically.

[Azukara]

I'd just rather let Sonic 4 go down it's own timeline, have where Sega realize there was no need to do this anymore, and end it there like it seems like they really have while they attempt to make good main titles, but that's just me. />/>

Quote

As it stands, Sonic Team have previously built or hinted as similar stories which they then couldn't be bothered to develop further, like the whole Blaze/Silver future thing (Sonic Rush's "other dimension" was clearly meant to be revealed as the future.

Nah, that just seemed like one part of Sonic Team wrote Blaze to be a princess from another dimension, and another part decided she's the sidekick to some Trunks knockoff in a post-apocolyptic future. Considering which one got wiped from existence and which one even got a sequel, I'm willing to bet which one is the actual canonical Blaze, lol. Though considering 06 has to do with a country called Soleanna, featured a Chaos-like beast with flame powers and a princess character, you gotta wonder if Blaze was originally the princess of 06 instead of Elise..

Blegh, like said, there's many reasons why that game got wiped from canon. Good riddance not only to the quality of the game series but also to the fans trying to make sense of it.

Dark Sonic, on 01 December 2014 - 05:03 PM, said:

Sonic's planet must be a very fucked up place by the way. How can Knuckles Chaotix, Sonic Heroes, and Sonic Unleashed exist on the same planet?

Cartoony Earth that has some areas with various patterns all over stuff, loops somehow morphing out of the ground (and I'd assume messing up roadway systems as well, considering the loops and stuff made out of streets), rings seeping out of every surface possible, and a group of islands somewhere between Sonic-world-Australia and Sonic-world-USA that do weird stuff like shift around, disappear, float or even sink every now and then.

Sonic's world is really weird but really fun to write up ideas about.

This post has been edited by Azukara: 01 December 2014 - 05:15 PM

[BlackHole]

Azukara, on 01 December 2014 - 05:08 PM, said:

Blegh, like said, there's many reasons why that game got wiped from canon. Good riddance not only to the quality of the game series but also to the fans trying to make sense of it.

I could probably manage it. I've got an idea as to why Mephiles does what he does, I could probably make sense of the rest of the plot.

[SpeedStarTMQ]

To be fair though, it had some decent consistency up to Shadow The Hedgehog, where the entire planet was pretty much razed. Whilst the artistic style did change, you could always see consstency by the character designs, and they threw in lots of little nods to show you it was all the same world. The classic games could get away with drastic changes in style because they were all set on different islands which themselves felt like different cultures. Knuckles Chaotix got away with being completely surreal by being based on a funfair island created by Eggman, and Sonic 3D Blast got away with it because ti was based on the "mythical" Flickies Island.

It was a bit of a shock to the system to see humans in Sonic Adventure, though if one were to remove them, the cities wouldn't look far out of place alongside levels like Star Light Zone.

Sonic 2006 and Unleashed were trying to push Sonic in to the real world though, which I always thought was fucking boring as hell - I was falling out of love with the Sonic series until Sonic Colours rolled around. At the turn of the 7th gen, Sonic Team clearly though that realism + GRAFIX.

Edit: To explain what I meant about the Blaze/Silver thing, here's the sum up:

Spoiler

Sonic 2006 had Blaze and Silver from the future, and when the future wiped and became the "good" future, it pretty much seems to have led to Silver/Blaze never meeting.

Sonic Rush had another "dimension" open up in Sonic's world, and both Eggman and Nega were hinting that they held secrets about it at the end of the game.

Rush Adventure went a bit further but never resolved the issue.

Then Rivals explains that Silver is actually from the future too, where he's fighting Eggman Nega, who's now taken Eggman's ID in a bid to make himself look better as Eggman was a failure in the past.

Rivals 2 ends with no closure other than Nega being trapped in his own dimension.

Then we've seen sod all since from the characters other than a quick spot on Generations and the non-canon Olympic Games series.

You've got Iizuka claiming they're both from separate dimensions and the future and confusing things, when clearly he has no idea what he's talking about. I can't take the guy seriously when he's left Sonic 4 on a cliffhanger and can't decide what direction to take the series. What he's basically saying is there's two Eggman Negas, which is BS. Kinda pisses me off when he does the fans such a disservice.

This post has been edited by SpeedStarTMQ: 01 December 2014 - 05:29 PM

[Azukara]

SpeedStarTMQ, on 01 December 2014 - 05:20 PM, said:

To be fair though, it had some decent consistency up to Shadow The Hedgehog, where the entire planet was pretty much razed. Whilst the artistic style did change, you could always see consstency by the character designs, and they threw in lots of little nods to show you it was all the same world. The classic games could get away with drastic changes in style because they were all set on different islands which themselves felt like different cultures. Knuckles Chaotix got away with being completely surreal by being based on a funfair island created by Eggman, and Sonic 3D Blast got away with it because ti was based on the "mythical" Flickies Island.

That's the US manual's description. It's actually a place called the Newtrogic High Zone (???) that rises out of the ocean every once in a while, kinda like a sister island to Angel Island or something. It has some kind of special pull rings to do with it which explains the elastic ring thing and something something about Eggman discharging the Super Rings from S1/CD/3K to become Chaos Rings or something, idk I can't remember that well.

Either way, it's really surreal because Newtrogic High whatever is just a really surreal, otherworldly place. That's probably the most that needs to be said about it.

Quote

It was a bit of a shock to the system to see humans in Sonic Adventure, though if one were to remove them, the cities wouldn't look far out of place alongside levels like Star Light Zone.

Sonic 2006 and Unleashed were trying to push Sonic in to the real world though, which I always thought was fucking boring as hell - I was falling out of love with the Sonic series until Sonic Colours rolled around. At the turn of the 7th gen, Sonic Team clearly though that realism + GRAFIX.

Okay I get mentioning 06 but not Unleashed. Unleashed did take place in locales that were remniscent of the real world, but it was more Pixarified and the humans definitely fit Sonic's world more than anything else we've had regarding humans (they also looked really similar to the humans in the "Man of the Year" short). Plus, the art style practically matches Colors, its just that Colors has different locales. So... ?????

This post has been edited by Azukara: 01 December 2014 - 05:29 PM

[Dark Sonic]

Colors works at least because it's in space.