The Supreme Topic of 'Other' Knowledge.

You mean like: “Classic,” “Adventure,” and “Modern/boost/meta?”

Classic would be 91-98, concluding with Sonic Adventure releasing in Japan.

Adventure started in 98 and either concluded with 06, or some people will subdivide and say it ended with Heroes in 2003, so from Shadow until Unleashed, 2005-2008, are the “Dark ages.”

Sega’s “Modern era” according to Generations was Sonic 06 to Generations. Because of the name, it’d be hard to say we’re not in the “modern” era at any point lol.

For fans, “Boost” is every game from Unleashed until Forces, though I’m not sure if they include Lost World since it wasn’t a boost game.

“Meta” refers to the writing style of Pontaff and Griff which debuted in Colors in 2010. This continued through to Forces.

It’s a mess. I personally think of them as Classic, Adventure, and Boost though.

 

Even Sega can't seem to make up its mind. The HD version of Generations places Heroes in the Dreamcast era, yet the 3DS version puts it in the Modern era

 

Another reason why Generations 3DS should’ve actually focused on the portable titles like the press said it would. :v

 

Totally a wasted game. I played it relatively recently for the first time and outside of the 1:1 recreations of classics, I barely remember a thing about the level design. Doing GG S1, S2, and Triple Trouble for the classic era, then Advance 1, 2, and 3 for "GBA" era, then finally Rush, Rush Adventure, and Colors DS for modern era was such an obvious move. Fang rival battle in classic, Gemerl in GBA, and Blaze in modern... Could have been a must-play instead of a throwaway supplementary title.

 

Also would've given us fully fledged level designs with the wonderful but underserved locales of the GG games.

 

It was the exact opposite for me. I loved seeing 3d stages like Emerald Coast or Radical Highway in 2d form, whereas Water Palace felt like same old thing with prettier graphics. And outside of a few cases like Chaos Angel, I can't think of many zones in the Dimps games that were that memorable.

I'll admit that it would have been nice to see some SMS/GG zones though.

 

While I do agree that the 3DS version should've included stages from the various handheld series, I was glad to have a couple unique stages such as Mushroom Hill. I'd rather have all stages shared with the console versions be replaced, while retaining the exclusives.

 

I didn't realise that this was said by the press at some point - I always thought this was just wishful thinking. Do you have any references for this?

 

Had this floating around for ages, don't think I can pull a thread's worth of discussion out of it, so it can get dumped here.

Spoiler: the glossiest of Glossing-Over-Things Real World Sonic Timeline

1991-1997 is unambiguously the first major era, Classic
- people sometimes make a subdivision after Sonic and Knuckles releases, resulting in a foundational classic trilogy period ('91-'94) and a 32X/Saturn period of silently waiting for a true 3D Sonic game ('95-'97)

1998-2009 is accepted as the second major era, Adventure + Dark Ages, or typically just "Adventure" for brevity. (Not a perfect system but people like it like this so WHATEVER)
- undebatable that 1998 is when Adventure starts (SA1 release)... but a satisfying end point is heavily disputed, as what's even integral to "Adventure", is in and of itself, heavily disputed.
- The Dark Ages as a subdivision are also wildly defined, with a beginning point in flux iirc ('05 seems like a good spot), with only an end point generally agreed upon with 2010 (Colours release)
- from that, combining the two start and end points works out as full era parameters
- launch of SA2 Gamecube port is very important, functionally a second starting point for the era

2010-202X can thusly be considered the third major era, the one that's still ongoing, until enough meaningful activity and strong division from the current flavor warrants a new separation to be made
- just about all traces of "Adventure" and "Dark Age" sensibilities stop for 2010
- there are some subdivisions that can be made regarding the Nintendo Exclusivity Deal. ('10-12 as pre-NED... '13-'16 as during it + the immediate aftermath (i.e. Fire+Ice not really being part of the deal))

crushing the entire franchise history into nice lil' boxes is kind of a headache, so that's where I stopped back then

 

Generally agree with the timeline, with one major exception: I'd say Classic goes from 91-99, with Adventure included both there and as the start of the Second Major/Adventure+ era.

 

I think the problem with including Adventure in Classic is that Adventure was the first game with the more modern design. It's certainly a transition period, to be sure, but I'd put it in the Second Era precisely because of that transition. It was the first sign of change.

 

I don't disagree, which informs my decision to include it as the tail-end of the Classic era as well as the start of the Adventure era. There's a thread about this where I explained my position in decent detail in this thread and likely others. My main reasoning is that the plot is culled from Sonic Team's concepts for Sonic 2 and 3K, incorporates flashbacks to CD, and has a lighter tone than what followed in my opinion.

 

Sonic Adventure is LITERALLY Classic Sonic transitioned to 3D, old jump sounds and all.

 

I find it crazy to put Unleashed and Colours in two separate camps.

 

I'd keep the Adventure Era up to Shadow, given it's the conclusion of the arc started in SA2.
06 could be deemed the start of the Modern Era, but Unleashed began the Boost Era. And Colors the Meta Era.
Goodness, they really messed up...HARD.

 

How have they messed it up? It’s quite simple.

1) Classic from Sonic 1 to Sonic R
2) Adventure from Sonic Adventure to Shadow the Hedgehog
3) Modern from Sonic 2006 onwards

Game Gear / Master System titles don’t count. Advance games fall under the Adventure timeframe. DS games onwards are Modern.

Sonic Mania falls under Classic as a throwback title.

 

I do think the modern moniker does fall out of favour as time goes on. I feel like 06 was closer in tone and mechanics to the Adventure games anyway and the boost formula as it was between 2008 and 2017 seems to be concluded now, with Unleashed being almost a decade and a half old. In spite of the outlier of Lost World, I think it just make sense to officially label this period as the boost era, if ever necessary.

 

I agree with that, but for the purpose of the conversation and in line with how SEGA have referred to more recent Sonic games, Modern for now is still applicable. As you say however, it doesn’t account for games like Lost World, and 2006 is just an all round problem to place, not just because it starts a new era, but because after that the gameplay, storyline threads and tone of the series shifted dramatically. It’s almost it’s own thing, but as it’s so terrible it’s not a bad thing to forget about it.

 

The modern/boost era started in 2005 with Sonic Rush.