Did Generations screw up the timeline more than it fixed it?

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Hm.... I always just presumed that the reason why we don't run into any of the past Sonics minus Classic Sonic is that the Time Eater froze them in time, but left the bosses unfrozen and modified them as a means to slow Modern and Classic Sonic down.

Heck, I'll even go so far as to tell you the time periods I think you fight the bosses and how they would fit in:

Metal Sonic: Probably after the main game he appear in, he managed to get himself repaired and decided to attack Sonic solo (No Eggman).

Death Egg Robot: same as the original I presume.

Perfect Chaos: right before the original battle with him. I mean, it's possible that the Perfect Chaos we fought in Generations was his most powerful incarnation, but since we did not fight him with the positive energy of the Chaos Emeralds, we only presented a minor setback for him and destroyed his blue exoskeleton, hence his original form back in SA1.

Shadow the Hedgehog: right after he leaves Sonic to the mercy of GUN/the military, but before he goes to Prison Island to get the other Chaos Emeralds. His before battle speech might involve his surprise at seeing the "faker" escape his imprisonment so easily.

Silver the Hedgehog: uhh.....it's possible that when Sonic and Silver encounter each other, Sonic seems to be leading Iblis/firey tornado towards Silver, making it seem like he was a threat...that and the fact that Silver has never seen him before and was suspicious.

Egg Dragoon: It is possible that the one was fought before the fight with the original Egg Dragoon, likely while Unleashed Sonic was running around the Circus from Hell (Eggmanland) trying to get the the last temple. The version Werehog Sonic fought was a weakened version.

So...thoughts?

Edited November 13, 2011 by Enigma2

[Mega]

I don't see why it's so hard to believe Classic Sonic is after S3K or a younger Sonic. The characters acknowledge that he's shorter, younger looking, and has shorter quills. The eye color? Just assume C Sonic had green eyes and only appears to have black ones because it's a nod to the retro look.

Sonic 4? Unless they retcon Episode 2 to have the classic design, you could just assume that Sonic was going through puberty during Generations and, by the time Sonic 4 rolled around, he'd had his growth spurt. Simple enough.

As for him being in Green Hill... maybe he felt like going back to South Island for old time's sake? He already knew Tails, so there's no way it's before Sonic 1. The fact that he has to earn the insta-shield is probably just a gameplay mechanic, since they needed unlockable skills.

And Eggman... just treat it as a costume change, I'd say, and the height difference was probably for a nod to the Oshima art again. Unlike Classic Sonic, they don't actually acknowledge that Robotnik is shorter.

And for memories... like others have said, Classic Sonic only saw places from the future. He didn't fight Perfect Chaos or the other future bosses, and he didn't experience events from those games. I think him retaining memories wouldn't ultimately mess up the timeline. It'd just give him something to work towards; being as cool as his future self. I mean, you could look at C Sonic as a 10 - 13 year old kid. If you go with the assumption that Modern Sonic is older now (18 - 20), that gives anywhere from five to ten years before the 'present'. Also explains why SEGA told Roger to use a deeper voice in Colors.

But in the long run, Sonic has never been a series about super concrete continuity. They'll probably leave things ambiguous.

[Neon]

Silver the Hedgehog: uhh.....it's possible that when Sonic and Silver encounter each other, Sonic seems to be leading Iblis/firey tornado towards Silver, making it seem like he was a threat...that and the fact that Silver has never seen him before and was suspicious.

Silver remembers you in Generations. So it must be the Silver from Rivals. Just like how Shadow in Generations is the current Shadow.

Edited November 13, 2011 by Neon

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Silver remembers you in Generations. So it must be the Silver from Rivals. Just like how Shadow in Generations is the current Shadow.

When I made that list, I was under the presumption that we were facing their past selves, in other words, the ones who DON't know Sonic yet/completely/no knowledge of future events.

[Soniman]

he Perfect Chaos and Death Egg Robot fights are drastically different from their original incarnations- so how does that work?

Obviously this is for gameplay purposes and not really story related

[Tori Himemiya]

Egg Dragoon: It is possible that the one was fought before the fight with the original Egg Dragoon, likely while Unleashed Sonic was running around the Circus from Hell (Eggmanland) trying to get the the last temple. The version Werehog Sonic fought was a weakened version.

So...thoughts?

The original Egg Dragoon was a prototype while Generations' Egg Dragoon was an upgraded version.

Also I'm surprised no one has brought up Silver being in Modern Sonic's time in the end. They'll never get their timeline shit together.

[Johnny Boy]

I'm in the camp that honestly believes more thought is being put into Generations here than it got at Sonic Team. It's just a silly little game with a silly little story that'll never be relevant to anything ever again anyway.

In other words, the story of sonic generations is

[Danj86]

Classic Eggman is already bald. It's very, very rare for someone to be completely bald in their 30s, suggesting he was at least meant to have been in his 50s already.

[Mega]

Or maybe it's possible that Eggman shaved his head bald on purpose?

Anyway, I'm still sticking with younger versions for all the reasons I outlined in my previous post. And again, I doubt he's actually that much shorter.

[Marcello]

Or maybe it's possible that Eggman shaved his head bald on purpose?

[Salamander]

Generations cannot screw up the timeline of the Sonic games because there is no timeline. The developers don't care.

I genuinely don't understand why people would think that the Sonic series has any kind of a clearly-defined canon or why canonicity would be a useful concept to apply to the series. It's just a series of wacky adventures and the writers, no matter who they are, clearly don't care about continuity at all. The only kind of canon that exists for the series is selective; a game may choose to make references to past games, or not to, and those references will be utterly meaningless outside of that game. There's barely any more plot than in Mario, and it's just an excuse to shuffle the characters from location to location, provide a framework to the level order that creates a sense of progression and a clearly-defined beginning and end. Generations exemplifies this; the plot is a wafer-thin excuse to revisit past favourites, and nobody within the game comments on how this will affect the timeline or whether there'll be a problem with them seeing the future because the writers know that the game will never be referred to in a meaningful way again, which is why they can make references on these exact terms to games with bizarre premises like Secret Rings. They know that it doesn't matter.

Classic was another design of Sonic; Classic is also younger Sonic.

Blaze comes from another dimension; Blaze comes from the future.

The Moon was blown up; the Moon was never blown up.

These are all true at the same time because there is no one truth.

[Sonictrainer]

Here's how I see it:

After Eggman found Time Eater, he wanted to do a test run of its power. So he went straight to the Year 1991 and appeared after Sonic had defeated Classic Eggman for the first time (meaning he learned the Spin Dash at this time).

Then he absorbed the space in Green Hill.

As a result, the Green Hill Zone was sent to the White World, which is basically a dump for anything Time Eater "eats", and time and space were slowly being affected by Sonic's disappearance from history.

While he was happy with its power, he realized he would need some help to perfect it. So he went to Classic Eggman and together they worked on it.

Next, the Eggmen decided to test run the new version, so they decided to get some revenge. So he went to Modern Sonic's party and crashed it.

In retrospect, they didn't have to do that and in the end that was their downfall.

What Eggman didn't realize is that Classic Sonic was immune to Time Eater's ability and wasn't a statue because he had the 6 Chaos Emeralds at the time. Since Classic Sonic was fine, Modern Sonic would fall into the White World unaffected as well.

Also, Classic Sonic had already ran through the Green Hill Zone and had started running through the White World so Modern Sonic didn't see him when he woke up.

After Modern Sonic ran through the Green Hill Zone, Green Hill was restored and the main timeline was fixed for 1991, which allowed the year 1992 to be slowly fix itself, but not completely. Therefore, Classic Tails had been restored because he would meet Classic Sonic shortly after Eggman's first defeat.

After both Sonics restored the Genesis Era, Eggman took notice. Time Eater wasn't complete yet so they made a redesigned Metal Sonic and Death Egg Robot and gave them each a Chaos Emerald as a power source. However, after they failed, both Eggman decided to put more traps and robots into the remaining areas and upgraded the GUN enemies and Trucks in City Escape. Then Modern Eggman had an idea. He took some the artificial Chaos from the Space Colony Ark, and used their data to create an exact replica of Perfect Chaos. It was good in terms of battle and ran on a single Chaos Emerald but unfortunately, it wasn't as strong as the original.

After the Dreamcast Era is restored Shadow appears in the White World. It appears that Eggman has found 4 of the emeralds and one of the others were held by Shadow, which keeps him from becoming a statue. However, this Shadow is from Shadow the Hedgehog and will fight Sonic for the Yellow Emerald.

[Chibinuva]

It was probably some gag they said at the end, it's nothing to take seriously. Their not going to make Eggman a teacher....are they?

Have you seen Sonic X? Well, he actually had a robot teaching for him, but that didn't go well. Honestly, I'll just treat it like everything since 06. Either a separate episode, meaning it's not relevant to the rest of the storyline, or it retcons itself ala 06.

[Marcello]

Generations cannot screw up the timeline of the Sonic games because there is no timeline. The developers don't care.

I genuinely don't understand why people would think that the Sonic series has any kind of a clearly-defined canon or why canonicity would be a useful concept to apply to the series. It's just a series of wacky adventures and the writers, no matter who they are, clearly don't care about continuity at all. The only kind of canon that exists for the series is selective; a game may choose to make references to past games, or not to, and those references will be utterly meaningless outside of that game. There's barely any more plot than in Mario, and it's just an excuse to shuffle the characters from location to location, provide a framework to the level order that creates a sense of progression and a clearly-defined beginning and end. Generations exemplifies this; the plot is a wafer-thin excuse to revisit past favourites, and nobody within the game comments on how this will affect the timeline or whether there'll be a problem with them seeing the future because the writers know that the game will never be referred to in a meaningful way again, which is why they can make references on these exact terms to games with bizarre premises like Secret Rings. They know that it doesn't matter.

Classic was another design of Sonic; Classic is also younger Sonic.

Blaze comes from another dimension; Blaze comes from the future.

The Moon was blown up; the Moon was never blown up.

These are all true at the same time because there is no one truth.