You know? You do have a point. The Sonic series never really had good cohesion. Frontiers Did a good job in referencing past games, but beyond that the series never focused on that too much.
I'd still insert Shadow The Hedgehog as THE finale, due to closing holes in the Project Shadow arc. And even so, it wouldn't feel as a fulfilling series finale, so to say ^^" But yeah, from Sonic06 onwards it's been tons of self-contained stories that could be deemed side-stories or extra stories. Frontiers referencing prior games helps little at making things more cohesive...
I'm gonna be honest here and say that I just can't agree with the notion that Frontiers somehow bridges the gap between what was previously seen as pieces of incompatible media that supposedly took place in the same continuity. I don't care that the game makes references to Shadow the Hedgehog, Unleashed and Lost World, they still have completely different tones and artstyles from eachother to the point that it doesn't even feel like they belong to the same franchise, let alone the same world/continuity. There's only so much that callbacks can do to make a world feel cohesive. Sonic 1, 2 and CD are barely connected to eachother continuity-wise, but I've never seen anyone questioning their continuity, on the other hand, I just can't say with a straight face that half of the modern games could co-exist, even the ones making callbacks to eachother, and that's because the series has no identity, not because Sonic Shuffle hasn't been mentioned for a while
Well Heroes definitely has a different artstyle and even tone from Adventure 2, yet Shadow's arc continued in Heroes. In was especially jarring considering how out of place Team Dark's story was compared to the other three teams.
I usually don't count Heroes for how shallow and out-of-place it felt to me at the time. Even ShTH managed to fit with SA1&2's narrative better, despite being treated as a side-story.
True. ShTH did fit SA1 and SA2 narrative wise, though the artstyle difference still remained, since it did use Heroes character models.
I think the series lost a lot of its cohesion with Sonic Heroes. I can't explain it, but I think it has to do with the presentation and how the levels of the game feel divorced from the world as a whole. Even in Frontiers, something about the cutscenes in almost every game post-SA2 feels like watching someone playing with dolls in a play set. Somehow Sonic 06 doesn't trigger this feeling in me. I wish I could identify what causes that feeling so I could express it better, but I can't. I think it has something to do with the environmental design and direction. It could just be nostalgia speaking, as SA1 isn't exactly a triumph in terms of cutscene direction, but I just don't feel invested in the stories in the same way. So when Frontiers calls back to different things, it doesn't make me think, "Oh yeah, this is the same world," I just think, "Some dude just name-dropped Chaos to make me think there is continuity."
I think the reason this is has a lot to do with Sega going Third Party when Heroes came out. I don't want to say Sega has become lazy with the story or cutscene presentation, since then as Unleashed, Black Knight and yes even Frontiers are proof that they have it in them to make amazing stories, it's just that the end of the Dreamcast in 2001 marked a point in Sega's development for Sonic to the point where they obviously didn't know what to do with the Blue Blur. It's the reason why I believe they were also all over the place for the series after SA2.
I feel like this is actually really important and something we don't really acknowledge enough. By and large, the most controvesial elements of the setting have become known to fans due to what the comics aren't allowed to show. Two worlds? The explanation for why we weren't seeing humans and G.U.N. anymore. Classic dimension? The (former) explanation for why Mighty, Ray and others haven't shown up in IDW yet. I appreciate that we do get to find out these things from BumbleKast that allows us to form feedback on them rather than just being kept in the dark, but ultimately they're elements that SEGA says don't exist, so it makes sense that they'd avoid even denying their existence. Also prevents them from being tied down in case they want to go back and change things.
In general I like that each game can both stand out on it's own and also be part of the larger Sonic Universe. I like that Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog can have different tones but both still add to the world of the franchise. I liked the tone and writing in Sonic Colors-Team Sonic Racing and I like the tone and writing in Sonic Frontiers and same for The Murder of Sonic. It's the same for the MCU. Iron Man and Guardians of the Galaxy are completely different movies, yet both add a lot to the Marvel universe. Sonic games feeling unique adds to Sonic in my opinion rather than taking anything away.
I also like the fact that the Sonic series can have different tones, I just don't want those different tones to be at the expense of the characters. It's the reason why I'm not a fan of the stories in games like Colors, Generations, Lost World and Forces for example. Sonic Feels entirely like a character that takes nothing seriously in the story of these games, and it's just out of character for me. And don't even get me started on Knuckles, a character I feel like wasn't done right pre Frontiers since the start of the 4Kids cast coming into the games with ShTH. I just hope that from now on with whatever type of tone with the story Sega does from here on the characters stay true to what made them so awesome during the Classic, Adventure and SOME of the 4Kids Era days.
honestly, there's no tangible location or significant characters to it, so its loss won't really be felt. Too bad for that time Eggman... cartoonishly swapped out Sonic's shoes instead of murdering him in his sleep.
The best thing about Labyrinth nowadays is how you can vaguely see Japanese Robotnik on the American box art
I don't get why Sonic Labyrinth isn't canon. Isn't every Game Gear canon now? I mean, sure the game is not good but when did this matter? If Sonic not having a home is so important for the lore, it would be simple to just change this in Labyrinth's plot. They're doing just that in other games.
