I'm aware? My point is they're barely remembering the events, while Classic Sonic was caught going through Green Hill Zone a second time (first time being Sonic the Hedgehog (Mega Drive)) and Sonic Forces establishes it as his favourite place to run through. Not exactly a place you're unsure about. EDIT: Technically third time, if we count Sonic the Hedgehog (Mega Drive)'s ending, but let's not be pedantic.
Robotnik: "I see you still remember what you look like, Sonic!" Sounds like Robotnik is expecting memory loss to me.
11:13 - So, if Origins’ cutscenes are canon, then how did the Death Egg Robot land in Hidden Palace Zone when the Death Egg landed in Launch Base Zone? Is Hidden Palace Zone located under Launch Base Zone, or did the Death Egg Robot get separated from the Death Egg, perhaps in an attempt to flee the falling space station during its fall? - The latter. (...) 54:15 - Okay, I think this might be the closest to pushing Sega's buttons I will ever come, or this might be completely inconsequential, but with CD's good ending being canon and Metal coming back after CD in R, is Sonic 4 even still canon? If so, when is it nowadays, considering it was marketed as being right after 3K? - As far as I know it's still canon but clearly it's not after 3K. So, at some point, Metal's got to go back to Little Planet and he's gotta get punked again to be rescued. - And it will be during Modern Sonic times, because Modern Sonic is the Sonic that's in it. (...) - For the sake of the argument, let's just imagine that Sonic 4 is the bridging game (...). Metal Sonic will return to Little Planet as Classic, get punked, and then be rescued as everything magically gets upgraded to Modern. [funny thing, Ian didn't mention Mania]
The easiest, easiest answer to this would have been "Robotnik built a second one, Metal Sonic Kai, but found it didn't match the original so recovered the original." They answered this in Chaotix in 1995, 27 years ago, for god's sake.
Hmmm I don't really see how this necessarily answers the conundrum of Sonic 4 showing Stardust Speedway Bad Future despite CD's good ending supposedly being the canon one. My suggestion would be that Eggman using Time Eater screwed up time on Little Planet (Tails *did* say Eggman's messing with time was doing damage), so in that sense he was able to erase one of Sonic's victories . I would offer a timeline, but I've realised that Chaotix doesn't play nice with this theory and I don't have the time to completely hash it out right now, so another time, perhaps.
I thought time in Little Planet is naturally fucked up? Because of CD's intro showing Little Planet metallized in present day.
Though a thought occurs: the present seems alright, if teaming with robots. Why are we seeing metal when that should only be the Bad Future? Honestly, time is weird on the Little Planet. I choose to interpret the time mechanics as Sonic is fixing the future back to the Good Future for Little Planet's personal timelines, but Robotnik and Metal Sonic are locked in the Bad Future in their personal timelines: they can not see the Good Future at all, only the Bad Future they created. To be clear, this is an interpretation of events, not actually what's going on. I don't need Pengi nitpicking my post again.
When Sonic reaches the Little Planet, how did he find it? Enclosed in a metallic prison, chained to a close mountain. Eggman had already started marking the zones his way. So yeah, the present time already has metal stuff around.
Indeed, but everything seems natural when Sonic's in the present, and you only ever fight Robotnik in the future. Perhaps the Little Planet is showing it's current future to the Earth? Once more, this is an interpretation, not what is actually happening.
I choose to interpret little planet time as being fluid. So although sonic fixed the future in sonic cd, that doesn't stop eggman messing it up at some point. Also iirc can't you just get the last time stone in metallic madness? That might explain the sonic generations metal sonic fight, as from sonic's point of view he ran through the bad future. Can't explain sonic 4 though, like I said, perhaps he just messed it up again (he does want to make it into the death egg mk2 after all). Another thing about little planet; where did it's civilisation go? They could literally travel in time, and yet they're not seen in any timeframe sonic visits.
Generations' bad future never needed an explanation. It's a game about time travel; if the Time Eater can bring 06 back, he can bring CD's bad future back. Sonic 4's bad future is the problem, which we assume it's because of Little Planet's weirdness.
I tried that before, but it's not likely that the bad future would ever be canon (in the sense that Sonic couldn't achieve the good future).
I tend to concur with the notion that time on Little Planet is in flux. Aside from that being a mention in a manual (I think?) you have to consider that between the timeposts and the time stones, you have a constant opportunity for time to shift and change. The fact that Sonic returns to the present Never Lake when he leaves Little Planet, despite fighting the final boss in the "future" and leaving as it's collapsing in the ending brings up two possibilities: 1. Time on Little Planet is in a constant state of flux. It's "fluid" as Childish mentions, or possibly non-linear, non-causal time that's unique to the planet. Sonic, Amy, Eggman, & Metal all experience it in a seemingly linear manner, but from an outside observer at (for example) Never Lake, events would be jumbled and constantly changing due to Sonic & Eggman's actions. 2. The future time frame is really the present and somehow Eggman altered the future again following CD or Sonic didn't achieve a good future. I think 1 makes more sense personally since the good ending is seemingly confirmed to be the canon ending and Eggman doesn't have much chance to affect Little Planet's future once booted off it since it disappears for a whole year until Sonic 4/Sonic Mania. Cause and Effect no longer have any meaning from a non-linear frame of reference, so it seems to me that Eggman's interference, despite being stopped by Sonic, is still a part of Little Planet's history, constantly coming into and out of existence due to non-linear, non-causal time. If that's the case, then the idea of where the civilization of the planet went might have a tantalizing possibility. With time being in flux, they're likely scattered and unable to reach the right point in time and version of that timeframe to hold their society together. Either that or they weren't important enough to show, but that's a boring answer.
And yet we're still left with the issue of how a functional Metal Sonic is still there by Sonic 4. If Eggman installed the original CPU from CD's Metal Sonic into Chaotix's, then how is there still a functioning Metal Sonic in Stardust Speedway for Eggman to recall in Sonic 4? We see him again in Generations and Mania, assuming you roll with the interpretation that Mania "actually happened", but Chaotix really muddies the water regardless of whether Mania actually happens or not because it takes place before Mania but regardless of whether it's followed by Mania or Sonic 4 (in the sense of Metal's real, physical location), there's just no scenario in which Eggman would be able to recall Metal Sonic from Little Planet if he's already taken that CPU. And this is without even getting into Metal's appearances in the Game Gear games...
It's not that hard tbh, especially because time travel is involved. During Sonic CD after Metal was defeated Eggman took the CPU from Metal's remain. Metal gets defeated in Chaotix. This Metal might be the one that appears during games like R. But, because of time travel there's alway a point where Metal exists in Little Planet. You can argue that the Metal you see in Mania is one that was taken from the events of CD to the present. Perhaps the other shells you see during the boss fight were also plucked from different timelines. Then, for Sonic 4 Eggman decides to pick up Metal again. This time grabbing a shell that was defeated in a bad future in order to upgrade it and this was the final time he did that. Why a bad future? You can say that their fight takes place in this future for whatever reason, but things get better once Sonic defeats Eggman for good. But this bad future always has to happen at one point in time in order for Sonic to achieve his final victory.
Metal Sonic left on the Little Planet after Sonic CD -> recovered in Sonic 4 (modern timeline) or Mania (classic timeline) -> Chaotix and R makes the most sense to me but I guess not. As for the reason he’s in the bad future version of SSZ in S4, easy: they had the assets ready from Generations. It’s just a difference in art style rather than a narrative one, like how he’s shown in the present version of SSZ in CD’s ending movie.
Stemming from the Unpopular Sonic Opinions thread, the Mystic Cave page in the Japanese Manual: Nothing about Robotnik digging around for Chaos Emeralds.
