The Sonic the Hedgehog Continuity Thread of Love and Timelines

Even if it doesn't look like it, Central City IS a part of the wider city setting in Shadow the Hedgehog: But that makes me wonder if the Black Arms' original attack that supposedly destroyed Westopolis (but don't worry everyone was evacuated so nobody died) covers the whole collective city or just the Westopolis part. Not that it seems to matter to the rest of the world.

Seems like people take this litterally as making it a part of the black arms rather than something that the Black Arms knew about etc.

Exploring Space with Sonic seems like a fairly obvious thing that they haven't really done in a (canon) game but have done anywhere else. I think the next logical step after frontiers really is just looking to other planets/planetoids with different species and settings. (I'm not counting Colors because outside of some light theming it's still more like the Death Egg with somewhat more natural environments attached and only one race of aliens.) One thing I would love them to work up to if anything was possible would be a canon version of Chronicles to see some of those races again.

 

Being pedantic, NYC is made up of five boroughs. The area people think of as the main city is Manhattan. Presuming Central City is in the center and Westopolis is to the west, the most analogous New York borough to the latter would would be Staten Island. Someone more familiar with San Francisco might have an even more appropriate comparison.

 

I was thinking more Central City is the overall New York City, not a borough but the entire thing. Westopolis is a borough of Central City, basically.

 

We probably don't want to forget that Station Square has been described as a central hub for various cities (or something like that). I always figured it was a "borough" for Central City.

 

Ah, that’d probably be a good way of explaining it if Sega cared enough to lol.

Do you know where this quote is from? I’ve come across it before but can’t remember where and I’m busy at the moment. Assuming it was translated from Japanese, I’d like to read the original. The opening FMV clearly shows Station Square is a decently sized city, so just calling it a “hub” for getting to other places is weird. It’s possible they just meant the play field which is in the immediate area of the station. Or maybe by other “cities” they meant districts as in Shinjuku, Shibuya, Roppongi, etc. The name “Station Square” also makes a lot more sense if it’s referring to a neighborhood within a larger city. Though that does somewhat conflict with how the characters speak about it.

 

For what it's worth, Station Square has a City Hall and its own police department, the S.S.P.D.

 

Yeah, that's kind of what I had in mind when I said it's not treated as a neighbourhood in the actual game despite it making more sense if it were. Between Eggman saying stuff like, "I will destroy Station Square and build Eggmanland," the police force named for the area, etc., it is treated as a full-fledged city.

Oh well... We can twist things as much as we want to fit our head canon, but it's ultimately pointless. That's why I typically steer clear of doing so myself. I don't care enough about the plots anymore so I prefer to leave it to @BlackHole. Starting with Heroes, the stories just became too self-contained and contradictory in style and continuity. Even as a 7-year-old kid, Heroes felt like a huge shift and it didn't gel with me the same way.

 

For what its worth, in Sonic X Station Square also gets treated as its own city.

I would like to see where it gets described as a central hub for various city though. It doesn't necessarily take away its city status by the way.

It would basically be a hub city like an LA, Miami, New York or Dallas. It could just mean its train station is a very crucial spot for travelers going to cities like Central City or places like Mystic Ruins.

 

From what I recall, it was a piece of NPC dialogue. I think it might be either Mr. Know-it-All or an older man who describes Station Square as a central hub for the train with "satellite" cities surrounding it. I'll see if I can find the specific quote. I do agree though, it might not be a borough but a city in its own right. That was always left a bit ambiguous.

 

Here.

I'll look into the Japanese script once I'm less ill, see if they've misinterpreted anything.

 

Ah, yes. I remember this now. I’ve actually been doing a playthrough of the non-international Japanese release recently so my DC is hooked up. I can try to check it out today.

 

From the lines around it, I'd say the quote is available when the Ice Relic has dropped in the alley behind Casinopolis, to save you time and going through that area after every single level.

 

Okay. I need to start a new playthrough then but getting to that point should only take 10-20 min. Heading to the store now but I’ll start it up when I’m back.

I’ll take a photograph and write the text into here when I find it. Though we should probably have the JP NPC script saved somewhere for the future. Not that I’m volunteering lol. I don’t know if I’m down for that time investment (at least not on OG hardware - taking pics with my phone would be tedious).

I haven’t played it much, but IIRC, Windii’s retranslation doesn’t cover NPCs right? Having the script available separately could probably make it easier for someone to add that in the future.

 

I don't see anything on them noting "translated by Windii", so I would assume no, the NPC Dialogue isn't covered. Might have to look into how to rip text from the game...

It would be a very good resource for those of us who prefer... certain rules regarding lore, as well as being a good point of comparison.

 

Yeah, I’m in the same boat there…

Just got back to the store. Firing up it up. Let’s hope the unskippable cutscenes I just watched don’t annoy me lol.

 

Sonic speed, and also a post so you don't have to double post.

 

It’s exactly the same. Literally, as straightforward a translation as you could make.

Japanese:

「ステーションスクエアにはターミナル。おおくの衛星都市とつながっています。」

The only difference is that instead of “hub” it says “terminal” in katakana.

The pic from my phone is too large to upload but I can compress and add it from my laptop later.

Edit: Here is it.

 

Thank you very much for checking. So Station Square is a transportation terminal city, interesting.

 

Yeah, I guess the NPC dialogue was handled pretty conservatively compared to the story scripts. I'm super curious why the Little Planet reference was taken out though.

Side-note: Playing the 98 release is so interesting and strange. I grew up playing the American DC version and when I got into importing games, I went straight for the "International" release because it had the English text and bug fixes. Most of the changes are minor but things like slightly different camera angles in the game I've probably played the most in my life throw me off a bit.

It does explain a few oddities about the game though. I'm sure most of us know how in the scene after Sky Chase 1, when Sonic lands on the beach and meets that kid, there was always that split-second moment when Sonic's eye freaks the fuck out. In the original release, the camera was positioned behind Sonic so you don't see this happen. I'm guessing they just ignored it because it wasn't visible originally, and then when they changed the angle for the western/international versions, they weren't able to fix it.

 

Especially since Amy references that same event herself...

Interesting, are there any other changes that display oddities you might have noticed?