The Sonic the Hedgehog Continuity Thread of Love and Timelines

No, actually, we do specifically know it was the concept artist's idea! Hoshino designed Shadow, not Maekawa! So actually, yes, I would cast into doubt any argument made on the base of "Maekawa decided Shadow was an evil Sonic" because as far as we know, he had nothing to do with that!

EDIT: And we're losing track of the point here- that it's just not likely at all Maekawa was doing a reference to the Sonic 3k mural, because all of his story doesn't reference the classics, all the use of Echidna stuff references Adventure only, you could only find two maybe references to the classics, both of which are unlikely to be Maekawa decisions. At best, you might be able to claim Hoshino and Iizuka wanted the reference in when designing an evil Sonic rival, but if so that means nothing in-universe or in the general storytelling of the game.

 

Pretty sure we don't know whether it was Maekawa's or Hoshino's idea to make Shadow a hedgehog.

Not that it makes much of a difference for this argument.

 

People arrive independently at the same conclusions all the time, for example the UK and US version of Dennis the Menace debuted more or less day and date with each other with neither creator having an inkling that a similar concept was forming elsewhere. I really don't think it's a huge pill to swallow that a Death Star pastiche with passing resemblance to a Robotnik isn't specifically a reference to the Death Egg. Even moreso with the final battle. Adventure had a Super Sonic final battle, Sonic Adventure 2 has a story that takes its protagonists into space. It's really not a leap to just...put those two things together.

 

I do, because it makes no freaking sense otherwise. Even if you assume that the ARK is meant to resemble Gerald's face instead of Eggman's, Gerald wasn't portrayed as the kind of narcissistic guy that would design a space colony in his image.

Regardless, the original argument was "Maekawa wasn't a fan of the classic games, therefore he wouldn't have referenced them", which is rather flawed and assumes that he wouldn't have known anything about them, even though he worked in a game that directly referenced them (SA1). The SA1 dev team would have had to talk about the classic lore to reference it to begin with.

 

The ARK’s design is probably is at least somewhat based on the Death Egg, but it seems more likely that someone on the art team decided to make it look like that rather than part of the script. I have yet to see any references to the classics via the writing side of things, let alone something obscure like the mural.

As for Shadow being a hedgehog, that was probably Iizuka, since he said the idea for an “evil Sonic” was something he came up with during SA1’s development, right? Iizuka created Shadow, Hoshino designed him, and Maekawa wrote him.

 

You’re putting words in my mouth. I only said that the Ark bears a passing resemblance to a Robotnik, not that it was intended to look as such within the story. It could literally just be a little Easter egg of “Hey this satellite looks like Gerald/Eggman!”, but its appearance isn’t commented on by the characters.

Not everything needs to have an in-story explanation that connects it to something else.

 

Apologies.

You're putting words in my mouth too, though.

I wasn't implying that there was an in-universe connection to the Death Egg. The implication was more that its "Death Star with Eggman's face" look was inspired in real life by the Death Egg. To claim that the similarities are a total coincidence feels like reaching or denial. Like, is it really THAT hard to accept that a game that recreated Green Hill in 3d had other nods to the classic games?

(Before someone jumps at my throat, I'm not remotely implying that Maekawa had anything to do wih Green Hill in SA2 )

 

I honestly think it's a huge stretch to argue that the ARK having an Eggman face isn't riffing on the Death Egg having an Eggman face. We don't know if that was Maekawa's call, and it very likely wasn't, but even if it was, I don't think that it would then follow that Shadow's design was a riff on the Hidden Palace mural, whether by Maekawa or anyone else.

Even as someone who headcanons the mural/Shadow connection (mostly because of upturned spines), I think Shadow's concept art lacking the distinctly "Super Sonic spine shape" alone makes that a non-starter from a production standpoint.

 

Shadow's final design looks significantly different from those initial 'evil Sonic' sketches. Those changes happened for reasons. Not saying it was necessarily because of the mural, just that his prototype designs having no connection to Super Sonic doesn't really prove anything. Other potential sources of inspiration could have just come later, perhaps when they formed an actual backstory for the character.

 

I think it counts because Flynn teased it on Twitter before it came out. I would assume it was in the script.

 

It wouldn't be the first time an artist has snuck through an easter egg under the radar (source is IDW Sonic #31, cover B)...

 

I think the Classic Chaotix are here to stay unlike Knothole tho. Especially after seeing that TailsTube with Knuckles and the boys.

 

True, I hope to be pleasantly surprised.

 

Ian actually said this wasn't what he was teasing. It's something snuck in. He was teasing the Chaotix mention on TailsTube.

 

The "Evil Sonic" idea was Iizuka, yeah. It's supposed to be a part of SA2's Good vs Evil theme. Maekawa didn't seem interested in that though, and told his own story taking influences from anime he liked (eg Please Save My Earth).

If you look at Maekawa's other games (Heroes, 06, Black Knight) you can see that he's more interested in telling his own stories than referencing Sonic's past. Even something like Heroes reusing Metal Sonic and Chaotix totally reinterprets those characters. Referencing the mural doesn't fit with his M.O.

Not to mention, the whole existence of Biolizard kinda shits on the mural theory. You can fanwank that Gerald discovered the mural later on and decided hedgehogs were the way to go, but that kind of clunky storytelling speaks to a lack of intentionality on Sega's end. Now that I think about, it would make sense for the Biolizard to resemble Eggman, so you can have the mural come full circle when Shadow fights Biolizard.

 

If you're looking for inspiration for a life form that could potentially destroy earth, it'd make perfect sense to start here.

 

I actually agree that Biolizard might be a subconcious nod to Perfect Chaos on a meta-level, but that mural doesn't have Sonic in it.

So like, what? Gerald saw a mural with Chaos, tried to replicate it, failed, and switched to a different mural for inspiration?

 

Yeah, sure. Why not? He's trying to make ultimate life. Specifically life capable of greatly harnessing the Chaos Emeralds. Who were the two characters shown on murals prior to SA2 who were capable of greatly harnessing the Chaos Emeralds?

I'm willing to concede that the mural theory technically isn't canon but I just don't accept that it's dumb. Does it even really make any more sense that Gerald made a brontosaurus and a Super Sonic to cure AIDS?

 

It's not that it's dumb, it's just I know SA2's development really well and there's no indication that such an idea was ever in the cards. But it's a neat headcanon and I'm a bit surprised that not even the comics have tried canonizing it

 

i wonder when this thread is going to mention that The End from Sonic Frontiers is in Sonic Superstars (which is visible in the game's launch trailer... for some reason)