The Sonic the Hedgehog Continuity Thread of Love and Timelines

Such attitude is a sort of headcanon-ing. You're free to do it, but official stuff can't be refuted.
I also tend to prefer to ignore a few specific things, but can't do much about it, so... ^^"

 

Two/Three Worlds was official, until the fanbase refuted it hard. Sonic Mania was an alternate dimension, until it was suddenly the past.

Just noting that we can actually vocalise our dislike of something and change it.

 

deleted

 

Ignored, but not declared non-canon.

 

Speaking of which, did they ever address what happened to Little Planet after Ep 2? Like, was anything on it on the Ecyclospeedia or Bumblecast?

 

deleted

 

I've not seen anything, but I think I've rather firmly established my disgruntlement with the lore coming from it and SEGA at present so only see what gets posted here.

@raphael_fc, do you recall any instance of Sonic the Hedgehog 4's cliffhanger getting addressed in the Bumblekast?

 

By that logic there are at least 4 canons. Current/official, old Japanese manuals, old American manuals, old European manuals, and you could even include Adventure era canon, and two worlds era canon. This stuff is constantly changing as time goes on.

 

deleted

 

I'm fairly certain the US and European Manuals are the same.

But Sonic Team always adhered to the Japanese manuals. Like I said earlier, you can evidence the development of the Ancient Echidna Civilization seen in Sonic Adventure in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Mega Drive) and Sonic the Hedgehog 3's Japanese manuals: there's a lot of continuity going on over there that the US and EU manuals lacked for some bizarre reason. I'm guessing it's the genocide, so they kept removing the references to it until they literally could not stop Sonic Team showing it in-game. So I would say Adventure Era Canon is the same as Japanese Manual canon.

Thinking about it, the two Western Comics of the time, Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie) and Sonic the Comic both had the Echidna simply leave, rather than get wiped out as established in Sonic the Hedgehog 3's Japanese manual.

 

The status of Little Planet and Death Egg mk. II did come up on Bumblekast recently. There's no extra behind the scenes explanation for what happened to them after the game (as far as Ian knows anyway). What you see in the game is all there is.

Unless an official source says that something was changed due to fan demand, you absolutely should not assume that to be the reason.

 

Oh, are the PAL manuals the same? I figured they stuck closer to the original Kintobor story from the old bible like the Fleetway comics did. But yeah, Sonic Team (or at least Naka) didn’t really know about the western stories. (Though to be fair they apparently didn’t know much about the Game Gear games until later either if I’m remembering right.) I was trying illustrate the point that saying “there are two canons now” because the current continuity is different from old material is silly.

As for Sonic 4’s status there’s no real reason to think it’s not canon. I assume the events of the cancelled episodes 3 and 4 just happened offscreen and the Little Planet is saved. It’s certainly possible it’s still the Death Egg Mk. II, but that would be uncharacteristically sad for the series.

 

deleted

 

The European Sonic Chaos manual story is different to the American version. Looking at them again, the EU Master System version is also ever so slightly different to the EU Game Gear version.

The European Sonic CD manual uses the Amy Rose name, whereas the US version uses "Princess Sally" (there's another canon for you!). There are some other minor differences in the text as well.

Ian confirmed that Sonic 4 is canon.

The Station Square kid isn't a big deal. He was referencing two previous games. He couldn't reference Sonic 4 because Sonic 4 hadn't been created yet. From an in continuity perspective, maybe the kid was unaware of the events of Sonic 4.

 

deleted

 

I assume something happened after Ep 2 that freed Little Planet. Perhaps the DEmk2 slowly decayed until it fell apart, having been deactivated. Or maybe Tails built a new rocket ship and he and Sonic used it to reach the DEmk2 and dismantle.

 

deleted

 

I don’t think there’s a definitive answer to that yet, but we know that in the current canon timeline the rest of the classic games happen between 3 and Mania, and all of them happen before Sonic 4. So I’d assume Metal Sonic’s remains in Episode Metal’s intro have been retconned from his CD body to his Mania body.

 

That's fair. It's just a way to deal with the fact that some people genuinely hate the new stories they've put forth in Sonic Origins. I don't think I need to note I'm amongst them, but I'm in the minority, not a singularity.

It really doesn't help that they've declared "this is what happened, the rest is null", it's like someone taking your favourite stories away, replacing them with Disney versions that barely resemble the original story you loved and saying "this is the only version now." Yeah, I'm sure the Disney version is more popular, but it's not the version some of us love.

 

Metal Sonic in Sonic 4 being a consequence of the events of Mania is the most reasonable assumption for now, but it is yet to be confirmed.