The Sonic the Hedgehog Continuity Thread of Love and Timelines

Indeed. Sonic the Hedgehog CD, Chaotix, Sonic Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic Battle, Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) and Sonic Unleashed would all like a word with the guy keeping tabs on continuity (Game Gear games debatable, might be animals, just not rendered).

Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) even uses the power cores of Sonic Heroes, and they reference Sonic Origins which features Sonic the Hedgehog CD prominently, so it's not forgotten knowledge...

Also, this is just Robotnik mechs, not other party mechs like the G.U.N. Robots in Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic Rush.

(Also also, the manual says Sonic the Hedgehog (Mega Drive) was the first time Robotnik was using animals in his mechs, but had fought Sonic prior, so presumably used animal-less mechs before that since Sonic wasn't surprised by the mechs themselves, just the fact animals are in them. But they're using Sammy SEGA Canon, just noting this to raise that Robotnik robots without animals in is nothing new.)

 

It’s nothing new regardless of whether we’re looking at pre or post 2022 canon, given that it stopped being a thing in Adventure 2 more often than not with the last occurrence being Mania, and before that Lost World.

Regardless, I expect the explanation for this is much simpler: it’s the writers playing to what they think people expect from Sonic. Although we know the nuance to this situation, animals in robots are an undeniable part of Sonic’s iconography. Whether this is excusable or not is up to you (I haven’t watched Prime yet so I won’t judge given I don’t have full context and don’t know if this being done to facilitate a good plot), but I don’t really think it’s something that can be chalked up to continuity changes.

 

Honestly, after watching all the episodes that have been released, considering the + - massive emphasis Sonic Prime places on Green Hill Zone, to the point that Tails' workshop is located in Green Hill, Sonic tries to remind Nine of all the "great memories they had in Green Hill", the framing device of the 'friendship palm tree with all our memories' in Green Hill, and - in general - the fact that no other zone seems to exist for the characters as far as the story Sonic Prime is telling is concerned,   I don't actually see how this could be canon to the game universe. It certainly doesn't feel like the game universe. For all that Sonic Team re-uses Green Hill Zone as an aesthetic, the game cast doesn't consider Green Hill Zone their home and it would be strange if they all did.

 

May we be all in to a twist down the line?
It still will be a long wait to check it out...

 

They really should have just not included the line. A quick edit to "These robots seem different to usual..." would've covered the same ground. But it is what it is.

 

Sure, I can agree with that (potentially, depending on the context I’ve yet to watch), but yeah I think it’s more a thing of prioritising a certain perception of Sonic over accuracy rather than the ramifications of following one canon or another.

 

When they talk about how it's canon, they mean that the show is important and is set as if it's part of the game continuity.

It is still its own thing and will have embellishments for the sake of its own story, like the concept of Flicky-less Badniks being new, or even the fact that it doubles down on the concept of using Flickies at all.

It's the Star Wars Legends of canon. Until the games (which are always the top of the hierarchy) actively contradicts the series, it's canon. Similarly, any new thing Prime introduces does not suddenly mean the games have to adhere to that (except if Sega wants it to).

 

From what’s being said, though, Prime *does* actively contradict the series.

 

The setting of the original universe in Prime (pre-shattering) doesn't FEEL like it's the game universe, though. I've already explained why in my previous comment, but I'll add some things.

If it's supposed to be set as if it's part of the game continuity, then it's kind of my nightmare scenario for the future of the games, lol.
+ - The entire world, for the purpose of the story they're telling, is Green Hill Zone. No other zone is mentioned in the entire batch of episodes. Tails' workshop is in Green Hill Zone now. When Sonic tries to remind Nine of their shared past, he talks about "all the great memories we made in Green Hill" (or something to that effect). Green Hill is everybody's "home" now, that they've "saved a million times" from Eggman.  

+ - Like, I can't see game continuity Sonic ever saying "home is where your friends are, as they say, and that's Green Hill!" I don't want the entire cast to move to Green Hill Zone in the future or for that particular zone to have such a large weight placed on it. Like, I get that it's the first zone, and that Sonic Team like re-using it over and over, but the cast themselves have never had a massive emotional connection to the place, or lived there. In placing such a large emphasis on Green Hill Zone, Prime really feels like its own thing, separate from the game continuity but inspired by it. If THIS is an undetermined point in the future of the game universe, then that kind of... sucks? It makes the game world feel watered down.  

This isn't significant at all, but there's also only one loop de loop in Green Hill and it's seen as a landmark by the cast. Which is fine for Prime, if it's just it's own thing, but very strange if this is the Green Hill Zone of the game continuity lol

Unless they do some twist where, when Sonic finds all the shattered Paradox Prism shards and resets the shatterverse, he resets it to the game continuity and the original Prime universe is overwritten. Making the show a kind of weird... prequel? But I really doubt that would happen in telling a complete, self-contained story for the show. It would also be... kind of wild lol

I dunno. I like the show, but it doesn't feel like "some point in the future of the game continuity" to me. It's better as its own thing. The IDW comics feel more convincingly set in the game universe, and the characters are more convincingly written like the game cast, but the comics aren't canon (at least, not confirmed to be, yet?). So it's weird that this show would be, to me. I'm not really hugely passionate about Sonic lore or canon or whatever, but it just feels strange - these characters don't feel like the game cast, the world doesn't feel like the game world, but they... are? Egh.

 

Logan Mcpherson, SVP-Creative at WildBrain, said Sonic Prime is canon on the Netflix Twitch stream promoting Sonic Prime.

 

Oh, I've only seen the first episode and I can already tell this is going to be a headache...

 

I mean, it’s canon insofar as it’s made with the established game universe in mind (with a few liberties.) As far as Wildbrain is concerned it’s canon. As far as the games go… probably not.

To be fair, what else are they supposed to say? “Oh, our show isn’t canon.” is pretty bad for marketing.

 

Just don't mention it, or just say "we don't want to be tethered to tightly to other stories: this world of Sonic's has faced similar situations in the past, but we get to see another of the blue blur grow into his own as a hero"? It's a series. It can be it's own continuity, like the movies and every other series before it, and tell it's own story without worrying about stepping on the games or IDW's toes.

I feel this is SEGA overcompensating again. They've heard the complaints about the lacking continuity and lore of the games, now we've got everything (active) becoming canon and part of said continuity, and talking about making it all feel cohesive, but Sonic Prime is just not hitting that mark, from the sounds of it...

 

I think it will be canon to the games. Ian Flynn worked on Sonic Prime, he is the current writer of the Sonic games, so Sonic Prime is canon to them. Flynn's job on the show was pretty much to make sure it was canon.

 

He was a consultant according to a Tweet. I doubt Flynn would've left the robots without Flickies thing in (watched up to Episode 6, Sonic said Flickies specifically, so apparently Pockies, Rickies, Pickies and Rockies are non-existant in the Prime Universe, which seems to be the case as we only ever see Flickies popping out of Robotnik's mechs), so unless we get clarification, it's probably safer to assume minimal involvement.

 

No they are in the Prime universe because it's the same universe as the video games. Just because something wasn't mentioned doesn't mean it doesn't exists.

Here is clarification
Source: https://www.thisweekmedia.net/interviews/omarspahi-sonicprime

 

I've yet to see them, and Sonic expressly said the robots lacking Flickies was the oddity. Actual quote is:
"Robots without Flickies? Now THAT's new..."

So, y'know, apparently it's only the birds that get stuffed into robots...

Alright, clarification accepted. Which baffles me how they got the details wrong, but they helped with Sonic Prime.

 

I think it’s worth taking a step back and not missing the forest for the trees. What people are discussing are elements of an animated series with an ongoing narrative. Sometimes these elements don’t perfectly line up with the games. Why did the writers of Prime write these contradictions?

Simply, because the slight discrepancies allowed for a stronger narrative within their own series. The full context of Sonic’s line about Flickies is that + - he has discovered himself in a new reality in which Eggman and the council rule supreme. Throughout the entire sequence, he meets familiar characters and locales that aren’t quite right. Big doesn’t recognize him, the loop-de-loop is missing, and Eggman’s robots aren’t run by Flickies. The entire point of the scene is to drive home how everything is changed. For a hardcore fan, it may be more accurate for Sonic to say, “Hmm, robots without animals powering them aren’t the norm, but I’ve seen some before”. But that robs the moment of power and misses the intention of the sequence. There’s a bigger impact on the character and the audience if Sonic’s discovery is something brand new and off putting. Likewise, establishing Green Hill as a sort of base of operations for the main characters holds narrative purpose. By establishing landmarks familiar to the characters like the aforementioned loop-de-loop, the payoff is that their absence clues Sonic into reality having changed. What’s more, the characters having a shared home is a stronger immediate reference point between Sonic and friends when he tries to connect with them.  

These aspects do indeed run slightly askew of canon. So if Sega was involved in the development of the series with the intention of sticking to continuity, why would they allow for these changes? I suspect because 1) they recognize that the changes served a narrative purpose and 2) allowed the animated series to have a very slightly different take on continuity.

We as Sonic fans see these alternate takes as discrepancies and wonder how the show could be canon, but keep in mind why Sega would want a “consistent canon” across media at all. It’s not because the company has in inherent interest in balancing continuity like we do, but because they want a standardized brand for Sonic. They want characterizations to remain the same, iconic and marketable locations like Green Hill to be present, designs to be consistent, etc. Sonic Prime still remains the animated series closest to the game continuity the franchise has ever had, and serves Sega’s current objectives. So while the elements in question might not strictly be “canon”, they’re relatively minor and don’t obstruct the larger objective of keeping a consistent brand.

As for the big question - is it “truly” canon, in that it represents an official series of events in the mainline Sonic continuity? Word from Logan McPherson has been somewhat inconsistent, but looking simply at the evidence of the show I would have to say no. The continuity differences do suggest a slightly alternate continuity. However, the differences are so minor that, should Sega wish, it would not be difficult for the characters to reference the events of the series in an future game or comic book. Just as + - Tangle and Sticks have been incorporated into the game canon   , one could easily accept the broad strokes of Sonic Prime occurring at some point in the main series. The Paradox Prism and resulting Shatterverse are the biggest contributions to the franchise, and there is nothing to their existence that prevents them from being accepted by the main series.

 

Ian doesn’t decide what’s canon or not. We don’t even know if he’s going to write any games after Frontiers.

The lore team, as far as I know, is for keeping track of the stories for games that are already there and advising licensed media on how to fit their projects in with that, not deciding future things. It could include Prime I guess but I’m pretty sure their involvement was limited to advising.

The stuff with the characters living in Green Hill and the Flicky thing (which could honestly be brushed off pretty easily as incidental dialogue) suggests the team consciously took enough liberties that it doesn’t really fit, but otherwise tried to stick to the canon. That doesn’t mean Sega actively considers it canon the same way the games are.

Also, I think the post above nails some reasons for the changes.

 

Regarding Sonic's portrayal in Prime...
If Frontiers serves as reference, canon-wise he may've always been meant to be this way. Prime's writers may've simply dialed it to 11 for their intended narrative's sake.
The old western canon had him kinda this way (in some versions), the Sonic OVAs also had him kinda this way, I think even Sonic X had him a bit this way.
I guess SA1 onwards portraying him as more of a shounen manga hero screwed the originally intended vision of his personality.

In the end, in my opinion, Sonic can be deemed as such: The hero his world has, but not the hero his world might need.
He's a free, adventurous soul, he cares about the world and those around him, but his friends seem (more times than not) to have their plates full dealing with him.
He's snarky, impatient, "high risk, high reward" and hungers for adventures (and maybe the occasional hot dog xD)