From what I can gather, in Japan Psychics are basically all-powerful, able to telekinetically affect things, warp around, project themselves, etc. It might be that the Phantom Ruby operates under similar rules, and creates things from memories or mental ideas. Basically, the Phantom Ruby is a Psychic Stone.
I mean, that’s not something I feel needs to be delved in to- it’s clearly a powerful crystal that can do psychic stuff and doesn’t have set defined limits in order to allow the writers to use it in any way they want in either game and any future instalments, but I absolutely see your point. I agree with you and retract my previous ‘I was correct’ statement, however I do think it’s likely it’s before Knuckles Chaotix for the aforementioned reasons, however either way before or after suits if we’re assuming the ‘finer details’ in Sonic Mania are just fan service and nothing more. Placing it after Sonic Mania does make more sense in terms of the time travel elements anyway, as it can’t have taken place in the original timeline due to the Chaotix being re-invented for Heroes. That said I think they class KC as a side game which they don’t really care to delve in to in terms of overall series plots, regardless of whether later instalments contradict it somewhat.
Looking back on it, the Phantom Ruby does seem to have a similar skillset to Silver, the resident psychic, plus the illusion ability. When Silver engages Infinite, the only real difference between the powers they're showing are the colours.
Clearly he's descended from the Ruby, not Infinite. It would be interesting to see, though, that Silver is descended from an unrepentant villain instead of a hero.
So I've posted a timeline detailing how I believe the Classic Era of Sonic goes over on Twitter. It takes note of all the games with stories. I've already got the Adventure and Current Eras finished off as well, but I'm holding off on those until Sonic Loreposting posts their version. Regardless, I thought it would be apt if I posted them in here, as it's effectively my "fixed" continuity, albeit specifically the Classic Era for now. The thread details why certain games are where they are.
Actually, it's fairly simple. The only real oddity is Sonic Chaos' weird "South Island sinking" plot, otherwise the stories tend to work around the 16-bit titles.
No it's not. It is super weird to place any game between Sonic 2 and Sonic 3, because of the Death Egg falling with Eggman in Angel Island. Besides, Sonic arrives at Angel Island with the 7 Chaos Emeralds, but he never colected 7 emeralds in any 8-bit game. The timeline that I tried to make kinda solves most issues (of course considering that these games belong to the same universe/dimension, which might not be the case), but doesn't solve Knuckles being considered a "stranger" in Sonic Triple Trouble.
The Sonic the Hedgehog 3 manual only states "Eggman escaped from the fallen Death Egg". It's a bit ambiguous on the wording, not specifying when he escaped the fallen Death Egg, and considering the Death Egg is implied to have taken a short while to re-enter the atmosphere: I don't think Robotnik remained in an inoperable space station for that time, he likely escaped when the Death Egg fell to Sonic in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and tracked it down when it hit planetside.
So Eggman flew back to the planet, faced Sonic and Tails again a bunch of other times, and only then he went to Angel Island, while Sonic managed to collect the seventh Chaos Emeralds off-screen? I find this very unlikely at least. Besides, why did Sonic and Tails get separated after the events of Sonic 2? Tails wasn't in Green Hill in Generations. I understand they get separated after a few adventures, just for the sake of having new solo adventures, but after their first one? They just saved the world together.
He escaped while the Death Egg was inoperable while in orbit, yes. When it came down on Angel Island, he tracked it down same as Sonic and Tails subsequently do. Would you stay in a car you know is going to crash and you can't stop, or would you bail and track down the crash after? I'd personally rather not be in something crashing from orbit. Who said they were separated? Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on Master System establishes that Sonic sometimes goes for an adventure on his own: So him going off for a jog on his own isn't exactly a new activity of his. He wasn't expecting to be ambushed by the Time Eater, so Tails would most likely be waiting for him to get back, or otherwise doing his own activity.
Again... Why the need to mix the mainline titles and side-stories together? In my opinion, each line is its own continuity and should stay so, forever... To me, the Classic Timeline is 1 > CD > 2 > 3K > Mania. No more, no less.
It makes things convoluted, no matter how much mental exercises one does to manage to fit it all into one specific/whole timeline. True, it does no one harm, but only complicates things when trying to fix the continuity issues because it becomes too much to fix.
We'll just have to agree to disagree. From what I've seen of the Japanese canon, they actually fit in decently and are actually fairly co-ordinated: Sonic Labyrinth actually refers directly to Tails' Skypatrol, for instance.
A side-story referencing another side-story. Not surprised... Well... At least those stories actually tried to set a continuity.
The fact that it did implies continuity between events. Tails is absent in Sonic Labyrinth because he's off doing Tails' Skypatrol: that's continuity coordination. You really think they'd only do it for side games and pretend the main games don't exist for them? You're free to think so, but I disagree. SEGA did have a grasp on the idea of continuity: they put Sonic the Hedgehog CD between Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, so I can easily see them making sure the side-games don't mess up the mainline games.
Since ST never officially released a proper timeline, anything goes. The mainline stories never reference the side-stories, am I wrong? That should be enough reason to keep them off the main timeline.
Sonic Mania has Fang, Bean and Bark. Two only appear in Sonic the Fighters, the third only in Game Gear games beyond Sonic the Fighters. Is Sonic Mania a mainline title?
