The Sonic the Hedgehog Continuity Thread of Love and Timelines

We do know the lore team was pretty involved with the show.

Source: https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/m...-rouleau-sonic-prime-hello-neighbor-sky-luna/

 

I watched the show today. I like it, but I also don't see it as being set in the same universe as the games.

At least that I can read comments about. I can't do the same about Frontiers because I haven't played it yet.

 

It's just a marketing ploy.
They will drop this idea as soon Prime stops beeing relevant and becomes a problem.
Just like everything else in the series.

 

And that's an incoming problem and huge headache for many people.

 

That’s just how major long-running franchises go. It’s also not really a new problem for Sonic either. The big difference is that Sega is just telling us what they consider canon now rather than keeping that info behind closed doors and letting the fans try and figure it out.

I think it’s best to just think of it like there are tiers of canon: the games are on top as the primary sources, there’s a tier below of things made with canon in mind and maybe lightly referenced in the games themselves but aren’t something the game developers are beholden to (IDW comics in this case, maybe you could put some of the animated shorts here too), and then stuff that might be made with canon in mind that doesn’t exactly fit (so far Prime) and lastly stuff like Sonic Boom or the movies which are explicitly non canon in every way. That’s how some other major franchises do it and it works well enough.

We’re not going to have the games suddenly treat Green Hill as the cast’s home base or have Rouge be part of the core group of “Team Sonic,” but we might get mention of the Paradox Prism. I think that’s fine. The part of me that enjoys the main Sonic canon was annoyed at the former plot elements while watching Prime, but it felt like the story was at its best when it was doing its own thing.

 

I've generally been okay with the idea that the games all happened, but only in a sort of meta way. The audience can be expected to understand references but the new games don't need to be beholden to potential limitations set down by what came before.

 

It is explicitly not just a marketing ploy. Sonic Prime was built to be an addition to the world established in the games. The reason why Sonic explores other universes is so they can have more creative freedom. I posted a quote about this in the Sonic Prime thread.

 

The creative leeway was obvious, but if the idea was to sell it as an extension of the games doesn't stick.

And it wasn't hard at all to fix it, just paint Green Hill as an important place for Sonic, not as the whole center of the world. Also avoiding mentioning the ideia that Badnik can have or not anything else other than Flickys.
Or stating that the Tornado is a plane that Tails USE rather than own.

The conection to the games, while probably better than any non-web cartoon, is still rather weak.

Btw i loved this set of episodes of Sonic Prime, but selling this as an part of the game canon is taking us for fools.

 

Heck, you couldn't be any more right.
Such tiny revisions were enough to clear it up a little.

Not that it'd turn more canon-friendly that way, IMHO ^^"

 

I will say I have heard Ian Flynn talk about Sonic Prime's canonicity in his Discord server already. When that episode of the Bumblekast comes out I recommend actually watching it because typing the words out on this forum won't be able to properly convey what he was trying to communicate with us.

 

The Flicky thing is so baffling because it’s so easy to have one’s cake and eat it too. Instead of “that’s new”, they could’ve gone with “haven’t seen that in a while”. If the series is set an indeterminate amount of time after all the (currently released) games, it’s entirely conceivable Eggman could’ve gone back to animal powered robots within that timeframe.

 

In the future Green Hill is the center of the world and Sonic gave Tails The Tornado.

 

The Tornado in Prime doesn't even have Sonic's name on the side if you look close. It's probably a different Tornado.

 

Also the implication that Tails, suggested through Nine, lived in Green Hill Zone.

Nine lived in New Yolk City, which we see as where his harassment took place. New Yolk was built over Green Hill Zone on South Island, not Emerald Hill Zone on Westside Island.

Of course, could be an alternative universe thing, since Knuckles was in Green Hill Zone to save Rouge, despite having no reason to be off Angel Island (No Sonic = No Death Egg fight and crash to lead to them meeting in the first place). I'm also assuming no Chaos Emeralds nor Master Emerald outside the Prime Universe, since the Robotniks would more likely use the jewels containing the ultimate power to power New Yolk City, or at least be looking for them...

Though that begs the question of what happened to the Echidna...

So many questions, but we'll apparently be getting an answer soon, so...

 

Spoiler: Prime episode 7 spoiler

We see the pirates have Chao on their bandanas so I assume the Ancients still came to Earth in all of these dimensions. And the Chaos Council I would guess are named after the Chaos Emeralds. Knuckles could have still left Angel Island for different reasons in these dimensions. I'd love to see answers to all these question in future episodes. Hopefully we'll get 24 more episodes to answer them.

 

Spoiler

There's also Ancient statues from Kronos Island around the Paradox Prism in the Pirates universe. So probably.

Man, I would do the Pirate Universe so differently...

 

The Bumblekast I mentioned is out on YouTube right now.
(18:18) Ian talks about how Prime and IDW are canon.

 

At this point, with this continual continuity mess, I'm expecting them to announce all the Shadow the Hedgehog paths are canon. All 326 of them, together, at once.

 

“To an extent, yes.” - Says all you need to know.

As in, Sonic is blue in Prime and blue in the games.

Ian’s not going say, “My work is meaningless and so is the new show,” because that’d turn a bunch of people off of it.

Edit: “Meaningless” sounds harsh but it’s just hyperbolic to emphasize the perception he’s trying to avoid. I’ll keep it for posterity but I mean, “Does not impact the story of the series as a whole,” not literally meaningless. I’d hate to have him ever stumble upon this and think I was having a go or anything.

 

"Modern Sonic media is all inclusive."

"And Modern includes IDW and Prime?"

"To an extent, yes."

I don't read IDW and haven't watched Prime, but this really just sounds like he's saying that the major characters of these works exist in the background of the game universe, and the major events of these works happen(ed) in the background of the game universe.