The Sonic the Hedgehog Continuity Thread of Love and Timelines

Hence why I said a couple times before a reboot of the Origins games could come in handy.
Retcon stuff, rework other stuff and connect it better with SA1 and its elements.

You're mixing two different topics. AFAIK, the whole dragon legend and the ruined civilization got repurposed in SA1, so it's a kind of retcon.

 

I like how you emphasised the 'was' and ignore the 'pretty much' literally right next to it, signalling its status as a hypothetical.

I'll be sure to start putting contract language into any and all posts in here when stating a hypothetical, to save you the moderation.

 

To be frank, we don't get a choice in the matter of what is and isn't canon. We can have our headcanons, but there is the official canon, the foremost authority on the state of the games' universe right now. That can be retconned and such, but the people who wrote the manuals and crafted the foundation of the Sonic setting are long gone from Sonic Team by now and being slaves to the ghost of those early years is not healthy for any franchise. Things need to grow and change, to be able to explore new ideas. Sometimes that means things we love get left behind or changed. I continue to revile the timeline split and fervently hope it's one day retconned, but if you can't accept that what SEGA is presenting is how things actually are, then any discussion about canon is a non-starter.

 

Being frank, SEGA doesn't even know what it's canon is. They had the Master Emerald be a shiny green rock with no special power and unrelated to the Chaos Emeralds at one point.

They need to get someone who actually cares about the continuity into Sonic Team and in control of the canon.

I'm not being a slave to the past. I just hate that they're crapping over the hard work the original team put into everything. It's not that hard to make a short story closer to the original stories, as evidenced by my one night of work animatic that brought the opening cutscene of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 closer, with minimal effort.

Spoiler

I was even willing to just say most of the cutscenes were taking place around the manual stories, because hey, they look cool at least. Then Flynn announced they were total replacements.

I'm not against change, I'm against stupid changes. The new stories are stupid changes. It harms Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles for no good reason and it disrespects the original workers by replacing their hard work outright instead of celebrating or refining it with modern knowledge. At the same time, some changes would have been needed, and fine, such as aforementioned Chaos Emerald issues.

Honestly, I hate the constant nostalgia trip of the modern games, because Sonic needs to go forward, instead of using Green Hill Zone for the umpteenth time. I hated Pokémon BrilliantDiamond and ShiningPearl because they were literally the same, and I enjoyed Pokémon Legends Arceus because it was so very different in good, well thought out ways. Change is fine when done right, it's just a matter of doing it right. You don't want to elect in a dictator because you wanted a change in your political system, after all.

 

Yeah, I'm pretty happy with what the Bumblekast implied, at least assuming I'm reading between the lines right. Whether it was always a separate canon or Generations split the timeline or whatever, I really just want classic to be its own thing, disconnected from the modern stuff. I feel like that's how it has its best shot at thriving as its own distinct branch of the series.

 

To clarify, I wasn’t referring to reboots that clean house, but something like what Origins does, a look back and adjustment of those original stories with the benefit of 30 years of hindsight.

 

I disagree. It can survive even without the unnecessary split and will be causing so many arguments about which timeline is which in the future.

Sonic Frontiers: is it on the main timeline or the Mania timeline?

"adjustment", aka ignore everything, throw it all out, and make up a new story.

 

Definitely the Mania timeline.

 

Neither! Frontiers takes place in the canon that started in Sonic Adventure. I picked "it's alternate dimensions, not split timelines" when the thread started, so in my book, the classic timeline IS the main, original canon. Sonic Adventure re-interpreted elements of it into its backstory, but portrayed them differently and wasn't beholden to them, explaining, for instance, why Amy was suddenly so much older while everyone else was the same age they'd always been.

So to me, Frontiers is the newest game in the Adventure universe. But that's just my book. The takeaway I get from this thread is that Sega's played so fast and loose with continuity for so long that there are countless ways to interpret it, and they all make some degree of imperfect sense. "Everything is canon," after all!

 

The worst part is, that's actually a fully justified answer by what SEGA have said before and an example of my immense frustration with how the modern Sammy SEGA have attended to this series.

 

It's the cleanest way of handling it.

If Sonic has green eyes, it takes place in the universe where Sonic has green eyes. If Sonic has black eyes, it takes place in the universe where Sonic has black eyes.

 

While ignoring all the black-eyed Sonics in Sonic Adventure.

 

Wait, how would Frontiers be on the Mania timeline again?

 

Why would it not? Mania Sonic's going to grow into Modern Sonic one day. It's an alternate timeline, it's following the same rules as the main one.

 

Yes, ignoring those. They don't matter.

 

Again with the "growing up"? That's one thing I'll never approve or accept.
There was no timeskip between Classics and SA1, only an aesthetic upgrade.
It's better to treat Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic as parallel entities ^^"

 

It's not. I don't get this obsession with fracturing the series as much as possible.

It was confirmed to be him but older.


(Dunno who put this in here first, let me know so I can credit)

"We kept the original traits, but raised the age of his appearance..."

Also Sonic Generations, but anyway...

 

You just answered your own question.
"Age of appearance" equals "Aesthetic upgrade" to me.