The Sonic the Hedgehog Continuity Thread of Love and Timelines

And love them he may not, he didn't exactly try to overwrite them completely, instead throwing in little shoutouts to them to confirm that, yes, they happened, such as the whole Sonic the Hedgehog CD scene with Amy, the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Mega Drive) scene with Tails, and the whole "you saved the Little Planet and Angel Island" thing with the kid.

 

He didn't write Sonic Adventure 1.

 

Ah, he was the field designer, that's why I remember him in the credits. My error, sorry.

He did do Sonic Heroes though, which has references galore to them, like the giant mushrooms, the classic mechs images in Team Chaotix' place, etc.

Might I ask where he said he dislikes the Classic Sonic stories, please?

 

He mentioned that he didn’t really like the classics at least once on Twitter, though I don’t have any specific tweets handy. I don’t think he ever mentioned specifically hating the old stories, but he said he wrote his Sonic games how he felt Sonic stories should be, or something along those lines. It’s not 1:1 with Pontac and Graff’s situation (I think he definitely gave way more of a shit, and he was at least a stated fan of Nishiyama’s SA1 plot), but in a general sense I can see the comparison.

 

I am honestly really unsure about this because nearly every single source related to Sonic, said that sonic prime is indeed canon to the games and main continuity. Even Ian flynn said in multiple bumblekasts that modern sonic now is pretty much all-encompassing across all media (barring mobile apps) that feature his design. They event went as far as to say that prime is canon to sonic frontiers (which I find extremely laughable for a gagilion reasons) I am not defending this and I do think this is really stupid and is only going to cause damage to the timeline that has just recently started to patch itself together.

 

And neither of those things are how we define what is and isn't canon, especially since what does and doesn't qualify is "consistent with SA1" can be very subjective, as well as how it applies to anything Pontac and Graff did versus what was a part of the story regardless of their influence.

We were just talking about how Generations brings up Secret Rings. Forces is all about hollow callbacks to previous games.

Again, the only difference is whether people like it or not, which is worthless in a discussion of what did or did not actually happen within the continuity of the series.

 

If feel you're going to dismiss a point like that by arguing that it "can be very subjective", then the same could be said about your argument on what counts or doesn't as canon.

I mean, don't get me wrong. I consider Sonic's reference to the Storybook games canon myself, as I do said games. But Pontac/Graff and Generations have a precedence of meta jokes that don't comply with canon, like Tails' joke about rings. For all we know, Sonic's line was a similar meta joke.

 

Not as long as words have definitions, it can't. There is an agreed-upon idea of what the word "canon" means, but there isn't for individual interpretations of character writing.

That doesn't matter at all. The conversation thread we're following started with the assertion that because Sonic had a self-referential line in a game or two, that means that game shouldn't or can't be considered canon or used as evidence to support the canon-status of another game. The point is that this argument only exists based on subjective dislike of Pontac and Graff's writing. It's performative! Nobody would care about their experience or "meta" jokes (I want to fire the word "meta" into the fucking sun at this point) or whether there was a contradiction here or there if they actually liked the writing, because Sonic stories that people like do that shit all the damn time!

 

No, I'm pretty sure we don't have an agreed-upon definition on which jokes count as canon and which count as meta references.

I read Londinium's post less as implying that Generations should be dismissed as canon, and more as saying that Pontac/Graff's jokes shouldn't necessarily be taken at face value, as they're known to not know/care that much about Sonic lore, or let it get in the way of their jokes. Though I guess only @Londinium can say for certain what he meant.

If other games have similar meta jokes, then I'm pretty sure they're (or should be) treated as such in them too.

Though I can't think of many canon-contradicting self-referential jokes along the lines of Tails' rings line in non-Pontac/Graff games myself. Do you have any examples?

 

This is a load of non-sequitur. I don't care about how to interpret individual jokes, nobody brought them up until you did. The original post had Overlord mention Generations referencing the Storybooks (not as any kind of joke) as evidence of one or both of those games being canonical. The response was "Pontac and Graff don't know what they're doing", as evidence that we shouldn't take any game they wrote for as a fair judge for what does and doesn't count. The point is that's not how media works. Overlord was totally right here:

Self-admitted or not, this is the motivator behind wanting to disqualify games that Pontac and Graff worked on. If we were taking canon contradictions, writers not knowing the series' history, or little self-referential gags as disqualifiers, we'd need to cut out more giant chunks of the series.

 

The reference in question was a joke itself. Sonic referenced the Storybook games in a jokey manner.

 

By canon-contradiction, what do you mean? As Rings have been getting acknowledged as an entity since Sonic the Hedgehog 3, so the reference isn't anything new, but I'm assuming you mean the current mandate of SEGA not wanting to acknowledge them?

 

Even if we ignore Sega's current stance on rings, Tails wondering where Sonic puts all the rings he grabs makes no sense, considering that he (Tails) collects rings in the games where he's playable too. And that's not even taking into account his ring bombs.

 

Ah, a fair and valid point, thank you for clarifying.

 

No...no he didn't.
All he says is that it's one weird thing he's been through on the pile. What's the joke? The fact that he referenced a past event at all? I guess almost all Sonic stories are jokes now.

 

Ok, he didn't say it as jokey as I remembered. But I think it's obvious the reference was meant in tongue-in-cheek manner, with Generations poking fun at how strange and out there Sonic's adventures tend to be.

 

That doesn't mean it's not justified in-universe, and it still wouldn't make sense to discount anything else Pontac and Graff worked on because of it either way, which I feel like keeps getting ignored here even though it's the entire point of what I'm saying.

 

Sonic references Secret Rings in the very same breath as he does Colours - the immediately previous adventure and a story that has been established as canon several times in various stories. Whether the references are meta or not, I don’t think there’s any question that Generations treats Secret Rings as canon.

Ultimately, any individual can decide what they like and don’t like from the series, and what they choose to ignore as a consequence of that. That’s fine, encouraged, even - you should be able to curate your own experience to maximise your enjoyment of a piece of media.

However, no meaningful discussion regarding a piece of media’s continuity can be had without all parties coming to the table with an understanding of the objective canon/continuity of that media.

As an example, I think Sonic Chronicles had some neat ideas that I wish had stuck around, but it’s been stated through official sources that the game isn’t canon and has been ignored and contradict by several games since. Ergo, it wouldn’t be reasonable for me suggest that Forces’ story is lesser for not building on Chronicles’ ending, given the similar premises there.

And we can talk about contradictions in stuff like Prime and how that relates to the series canon, but even that requires an implicit acknowledgement and acceptance that Prime has been designated as canon, despite the content of the show suggesting otherwise.

To say something isn’t canon, purely because of the style of writing or any other subjective measure of a given individual’s enjoyment of it, is to be in petulant denial and only stifles constructive discussion.

 

Why are we discussing if Secret Rings is canon again? There is no reason for it not to be.

 

Out of curiosity, where has Prime been stated as being unequivocally canon by anybody other than those who worked on it? I don’t mean Ian’s “treat modern sonic as one whole thing” comment but actual confirmation.