don't click here

The Sonic the Hedgehog Continuity Thread of Love and Timelines

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by dredd, Jul 6, 2020.

  1. BlackHole

    BlackHole

    You're going to need MORE than help. Member
    5,645
    771
    93
    England
    Complaining
    Honestly, I don't think he actually took over the world, unless the world consists of one continent and a few islands.

    (I don't even think that's a continent, to be honest, but eh, schematics.)

    I'd be content if they just said Sonic's World is more akin to how Mario uses World in regards to levels: World 1-1. It's not a world of it's own, simply a land they inhabit.
     
  2. Josh

    Josh

    Oldbie
    2,123
    1,087
    93
    USA
    We had a whole anthem about it!



    My position circa 2010 wasn't so much, "Sonic doesn't need a story," it was, "the storytelling in the past 10 years of Sonic games have poisoned the very idea of Sonic having a story." Trimming it back to a fun, out-of-the-way plot focusing on Sonic & Tails foiling Eggman was the perfect move in that environment. But failing to even match the quality of THAT story since then has created kind of the OPPOSITE problem.

    One thing I will credit Forces for, though, is that regardless of the plot, the game does a good job keeping it out of your way if you don't care about it. My biggest worry when people start pushing for Sonic to be more narrative-driven is that it'll get in the way of gameplay, flow, and replayability. I would *HATE* to have a level interrupted midway through by some kind of walking cutscene.

    Forces' radio chatter throughout a stage is a great way to help drive the plot for a first-time player, and the fact that you can shut it off means it doesn't impede any of the primary reasons I enjoy the gameplay. (The level design does that. :V)
     
    Last edited: Aug 13, 2020
  3. BlackHole

    BlackHole

    You're going to need MORE than help. Member
    5,645
    771
    93
    England
    Complaining
    Which is ironic since story is genuinely important to games now. Even games like DOOM have story and continuity:
    DOOM > DOOM II > DOOM 64 > DOOM (2016) > DOOM Eternal.

    But with Sonic, as I explained elsewhere, the story should be basic enough so that you can tell the plot without speech and have it be perfectly understandable. Once more, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles did it flawlessly, introducing a rival who annoys you, but never really gets truly irritating, and making it clear there's high stakes involved by having Sonic turn Super in the opening: most likely he was planning to come in from a low angle and blow clean through the Death Egg as soon as possible before Knuckles chimed in.

    Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) did it poorly by needing to explain everything: if you watched it without speech, you'd see nothing but a girl getting kidnapped constantly, crying and then fire monster.

    Cutscenes are needed, but it needs to be a basic enough story to be told with actions rather than words. Words should only be used to let characters interact and play off one another, and even then actions can also tend to that.

    Night of the Werehog! That's also a good, but modern example. No words beyond grunts and growls, but tells the story plain as day.

    Also, a thought occurs: Spagonia is reintroduced in Team Sonic Racing as the location of three courses...

    ...in the same game where they used Earth as the planet, with a clear South America and part of North America...
     
  4. RDNexus

    RDNexus

    Member
    I usually like my cutscenes voiced. Despite the latest animated shorts having done a marvelous job at storytelling without a single line of dialogue.
     
  5. BlackHole

    BlackHole

    You're going to need MORE than help. Member
    5,645
    771
    93
    England
    Complaining
    I'm not saying don't voice them, I'm saying that a Sonic game's story should be simple enough that you can tell it without anyone talking. The voices should only serve to enhance what is already there, not serve to explain what's going on.

    You're right about the shorts also good examples of story without words, though. Thank you kindly for the example.
     
  6. BlackHole

    BlackHole

    You're going to need MORE than help. Member
    5,645
    771
    93
    England
    Complaining
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    SEGA of AmeriCAAAAAAAAAAA! :argh:
     
  7. Chaos Rush

    Chaos Rush

    AKA J.Matz Member
    597
    70
    28
    Even if that's the current "official" continuity, tbh I couldn't care any less. To me the Classic games happened and then the Adventure games happened, all in one continuity. And then the Boost trilogy happened too I guess. I don't really care about anything after that, since the two main 3D Sonic games that have come out after that (Lost World and Forces) both look like crap, and from what I've heard and seen play like crap, and have crappy stories, so I don't really care about them and whatever retcons they make. If SEGA came out and said "btw Classic Sonic is no longer canon mwahahaha" it wouldn't matter to me because it's still canon to me.

    I guess what helps for me is that I view everything from Unleashed and onwards to be an entirely separate series, even if that's "officially" not the case. Tonally it is, both in tone of writing (rise of jokes, lightheartedness), and marketing (abandonment of Uekawa's artwork on boxarts).
     
    • Like Like x 1
    • Agree Agree x 1
    • List
  8. BlackHole

    BlackHole

    You're going to need MORE than help. Member
    5,645
    771
    93
    England
    Complaining
    I think they were doing that since Sonic Heroes in regards to mainline titles. It, Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) and Sonic Unleashed all use prerendered models for the box art. It was only the portables using the artwork, and those stopped when they opted to do "ports" instead, and the rereleases of the titles before Sonic Heroes, like Sonic Adventure 2: Battle (and even then, Sonic Adventure DX: Directors Cut, uses a prerender as well).
     
  9. Powpuck

    Powpuck

    Member
    350
    65
    28
    Is the interview in which Yuji Naka is misinterpreted as uttering "Mobius" known in its entirety?

    I've long had a gut feeling that he was referring to how Sonic's world was inspired, at least partly, by the works of the famous artist Jean "Moebius" Giraud. I'd love to know if that was, or wasn't, the case.
     
  10. Chaos Rush

    Chaos Rush

    AKA J.Matz Member
    597
    70
    28
    I'm too tired to look it up right now but I recall that there was some interview where he referred to the corkscrew objects in Emerald Hill Zone as mobius strips which caused some confusion as to whether he was referring to Planet Mobius or just a mobius strip.
     
  11. BlackHole

    BlackHole

    You're going to need MORE than help. Member
    5,645
    771
    93
    England
    Complaining
    Unlikely. The Sonic the Hedgehog Bible, dated for June 24th, 1991, is where Mobius is first mentioned as far as I can tell (anyone know an earlier instance?). Sonic the Hedgehog (MD) came out only the day before that (June 23rd, 1991).
     
  12. Frostav

    Frostav

    Member
    639
    202
    43
    A good portion of Sonic fans were made with SA2 and grew up being invested in the lore and characters and continuity of the series. That's what's going on. It's SEGA's fault for spending a generation of gaming actually giving the slightest damn about plot and continuity.

    I know you Genesis Boomers don't care but...a lot of us do. Probably far more than we should, but when have Sonic fans ever not been a bit kooky :V
     
  13. Pengi

    Pengi

    Member
    1,891
    526
    93
    It was from Sega Visions, which was America's official Sega magazine at the time. Basically just fluffy promo stuff.

    https://info.sonicretro.org/Yuji_Naka_interview_by_Sega_Visions_(August/September_1992)

    As it was Sega of America's publicity piece, it's likely that the editor inserted "Mobius" and substituted "Eggman" for "Robotnik" in order to stay on brand.
     
  14. Overlord

    Overlord

    Now playable in Smash Bros Ultimate Moderator
    19,218
    965
    93
    Long-term happiness
    Don't tar Mega Drive fans with the brush of not caring about the lore. The issue is that a lot of it circa SA2-Unleashed was poor, not that it existed.
     
  15. BlackHole

    BlackHole

    You're going to need MORE than help. Member
    5,645
    771
    93
    England
    Complaining
    Nah, I grew up with the Mega Drive games, personally. I'm just a lore w***e, can't get enough of that world-building.
     
  16. Frostav

    Frostav

    Member
    639
    202
    43
    Oh, Mega Drive guys and gals certainly care about lore, but the lore they care about is a separate thing that doesn't really cross over with...Dreamcast lore. Still, I can't help but feel that older fans of Sonic tend to find younger fans' obsession with Sonic narrative elements a little silly and pointless.

    Like, when I imagine a typical MD/Genesis-era Sonic fan, I imagine someone far more interested in discussing physics, level design, and mood/tone than narrative elements.
     
  17. Xiao Hayes

    Xiao Hayes

    Classic Eggman art Member
    I always care about narrative, that's why I prefer how the 8-bit version of S1 depicts how Sonic uses the Chaos Emeralds at the end of the game. You get he's cleansing South Island from Robotnik's taint by removing all the pollution on the map, and they need no extra work compared to the Genesis ending besides using the map they've used the whole game, and they need no words, yet you feel a clear message and a clear conclusion to the story you could read in the manual, which had words but just some of them.

    Meanwhile, in SA1...
    1) A floating island falls from the sky onto the water.
    2) Tails says: "Angel Island is falling again".

    Thanks, Tails, we didn't notice. While new people to the series could need to know that, it's still not enough information to recall the previous "season" of the show, so it's not that useful in that regard either. And then we have the beginning of SA2, where stealing the Master Emerald looks so easy, trying to do so seems to be an obligation. Fang's missing in that scene.
     
  18. BadBehavior

    BadBehavior

    Member
    321
    83
    28
    (Bolded for emphasis)

    Shame you also can't skip the mid-level QTE cutscenes (unless you're a filthy glitch using speed running god)



    Just gonna show this to someone next time they say the new games are better cos they have no glitches.
     
  19. BlackHole

    BlackHole

    You're going to need MORE than help. Member
    5,645
    771
    93
    England
    Complaining
    So getting back onto the topic of Solving the Two Worlds Conundrum, I think we can safely say it's either not obvious in the Japanese, since the two games (Sonic Colours and Sonic Lost World) that had Sonic's World/Eggman's World mentioned don't actually say anything about it and just say the world, or it's an inaccurate conclusion by SEGA of America (or deliberate in order to drag the Mobius premise out from its grave) that's sown confusion.

    Of course, we also have those claims they're using Sonic X as a basis for a Two Worlds Scenario, from 4Chan but with a few of the claims from the same post corroborated by a member on here if I recall correctly, suggesting it to be the case.

    But they also used a full on Earth as a backdrop to indicate travelling from Sonic's World to Planet Wisp in Team Sonic Racing, South America clear for all to see, which is the most recent game in the series, albeit by Sumo Digital rather than Sonic Team. However, they'd have had some supervision for that, so that's still a mystery on if that counts as evidence that Sonic's World is still Earth, since the term Sonic's World doesn't actually exist in the Japanese games. It's just "the world".

    Meanwhile, while Classic Sonic is dubbed "the Sonic from another world", Silver is also from "another world" as he himself says in Sonic Rivals 2, meaning another world can refer to different time periods, something similarly seen in English: "Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!"

    Tails does go on to ponder if "Eggman's mysterious power is breaking the boundaries of dimensions...?" however. Does anyone know of anything in Japanese about Time being considered a dimensional thing? Maybe someone could check Pokémon Diamond Version/Pokémon Platinum Version, when Cyrus is attempting to break down time, see if he says anything similar about dimensions...? Or any other series regarding Time in Japan, whatever helps.
     
  20. Powpuck

    Powpuck

    Member
    350
    65
    28
    Time is the fourth dimension! :specialed: