Nestor

I think to be honest it's a hang over from the old SEGA of America spawned Western Sonic canon. You have to remember that back then, most people didn't even realise that there was a plot outside of the Planet Mobius based Western version; the internet wasn't really a thing and thus the original Japanese plots simply weren't well known - I myself was a huge Sonic fan in the early to mid 90s and I had no clue then that such a thing even existed. The fact that pretty much every other Western Sonic continuity -animated, comic and print - had a variation of Mobius solidified this even more. For people growing up in this context, their long-seated original experience of Sonic's plot was of him living on a fantastic other planet populated by animal people, with Eggman the only human due to him being an interloper from another dimension/planet, and so from their perspective, Sonic seemingly suddenly being based on Earth in Sonic Adventure was completely out of left field and akin to a soft reboot. While the advent of the internet meant that most fans would discover the background behind it all and the fact that the Japanese plot was the original iteration of Sonic, there will still be those who simply preferred the old Western Sonic concept as that was the version of Sonic they grew up with, and are thus somewhat resistant to the Earth-based storylines.

Oh absolutely - I was just suggesting to Splash that in the human-free world he was proposing, the anomalous appearance of a lone human scientist could be easily explained in this manner; at least two official Sonic continuities do in fact use this explanation for Robotnik's appearance on the planet Mobius.

Just have him be an interloper - a mad scientist from another planet/dimension that somehow got stranded on Sonic's world; it also fits nicely with the original games environmental theme of technology vs nature, with someone outside of the natural balance coming in and trying to upset it.

I don't think there's ever been an in-universe explanation given - it seems that's just the name they chose for their detective agency for some reason.

Eggman does seem to have a ludicrously fast construction capability; from multiple space stations, to the Egg Fleet, to Eggman Land, or his Interstellar Amusement Park (which involved terraforming multiple planetoids), Eggman has always seemed to churn out factories, bases and machines at an unfeasibly high rate. One does wonder though why he would waste so many resources on an Amusement Park on an island no-one even knows exist - perhaps Eggman intended it to be Eggman Land once the Death Egg conquered the world?

The main reason for keeping him alive is the morality of not executing Mr Tinker, who is essentially an entirely different benevolent personality, along with Sonic's reservations regarding killing a helpless being in cold blood, in contrast to Shadow's 'the ends justifies the means' black and white viewpoint. While Shadow killing Mr Tinker would have prevented the Metal Virus crisis.... so would Sonic snapping Eggman's neck while Eggman was standing around at the end of Sonic Adventure 2, or when he was vulnerable at the end of Sonic Heroes, or any other time Eggman was helpless, yet based on the games Sonic clearly would never do that. I'd argue therefore that Sonic's decision to spare Mr Tinker (albeit under watch) was in keeping with how he had dealt with Eggman previously. His decision to reactivate and let Metal Sonic run free however....

The Nocturnus are alive, but they're currently locked in a war with the other Twilight Cage denizens, as per the last things we see of them in the game - until they resolve that conflict, they are unlikely to be able to turn their attention to more warp-belt incursions back into the real universe, and the longer the conflict takes, the less likely they are to return in any appreciable time frame due to the Twilight Cage's time dilation.

Because of the Twilight Cage's time dilation, they're still not much further on from where the end of the game left them; if their war with the other Twilight Cage denizens takes longer than a week of their time, they won't be seen for decades or even centuries in the real universe.

Er... while obviously everyone has different tolerances for things, would you really call the extremely mild action sequences of the characters punching robots and vice versa a 'mindless bloodbath' or a significantly dark theme? I mean....it's not exactly Reservoir Dogs, is it?

Happily they have in fact returned! According to Wookieepedia, all seven styles (including the variants like Shien/Djem So and Juyo/Vaapad) have been referenced in the new canon, albeit not in quite as much detail as the old EU. Maybe Hux could be a bard or something.... 😄 Kylo definitely needs someone to buff his poor Will saves....

While a scavenger could just be someone who just picks up or breaks off random pieces, it's established in Rey's opening scene that she is obviously aware of the individual components and is inspecting the insides of machinery for them, and her later line on the Falcon indicates that she's worked on Unkar Plutt's ships before; a scavenger who is actually aware of how the machines work is going to be significantly more successful at scavenging components than one without that knowledge (and indeed my understanding is that the ancilliary materials expanding Rey's backstory actually do explicitly go down this route). The fact that she is a competent mechanic shouldn't be unusual given the context. Her piloting experience is a bit sketchier, with the main implication being that Plutt uses Rey to test pilot the ships he has her work on (again something that I believe is more explicitly stated in the additional stories), but it least is a somewhat logical extrapolation from her working on his ships. Compare and contrast with Luke's piloting ability; why would a farmer (and one who hasn't yet been to the Academy) have any piloting skills whatsoever, let alone be able to immediately jump into a frontline military starfighter? How does he even know how to operate the Falcon's gun turrets? There are explanations built up for this in the ancilliary materials (the T-16's controls have the same layout as an X-Wing's and he races it against his friends on Tattooine), but from the film alone it's even more of an informed ability than Rey's without as much logical grounding. I don't think you can say that rebounding from failures negates or lessens the failure; the protaganist will generally always recover from adversity in some way. Consider Luke; his aunt and uncle are killed, but it enables him to follow Obi-Wan and begin his destiny. He ignores Yoda and goes to rescue his friends, gets his hand chopped off by Vader and learns his true parentage - but he receives a near identical replacement hand immediately and sets on the path of redeeming Vader instead of killing him like Obi-Wan and Yoda had intended, ultimately leading to the defeat of Palpatine. He's captured and almost eaten by Ewoks, but manages to escape and recruit them, and they ultimately turn the tide in the Battle of Endor. If you look at each adversity Luke faces, he overcomes each one in some way that is ultimately beneficial. As per my previous post, she isn't abnormally good at everything; she makes mistakes that cost her, albeit not fatally. The only skills she can be considered good at are her mechanical aptitude, her fighting ability and her strength in the Force; the two former abilities are plausibly explainable by her life and work on Jakku and the latter is deliberately inexplicable, forming a large facet of her character's journey. She's also a fair pilot, but not exactly Poe Dameron or Han Solo; the maneuvres she does on Jakku are able to be duplicated by a random TIE pilot after all. Regarding her flaws that have consequence to her character, her naivete and desperate need for validation regarding her parents is a major weakness present through both films; in the first, it almost makes her leave Han Solo and the others and return to Jakku for a rendevous that would never come, and in the second, it drives her away from Luke and towards Kylo Ren, and ultimately into Snoke's trap. That was a major failure that would have been fatal save for Ren's intervention; even after Snoke's death, the meaninglessness of her parentage is used by Ren to try and turn her to join him; while Rey ultimately resists, it doesn't come easily and she is reduced to a point of emotional weakness by it. Interestingly, Darth Maul actually did get shot in the (magical robotic) leg by a bunch of pirates in Clone Wars, so there is precedent in the right circumstances.... I think though I'd disagree with you on the idea that Kylo getting shot and the scenes afterwards make him weak - I'd argue actually quite the opposite. Consider - he's hit in the abdomen by a sniper shot whilst he's (quite significantly and understandably) distracted. Despite getting hit in the kidneys by a weapon that had previously been shown to throw fully armoured Stormtroopers six foot backwards through the air, he chases after the heroes through an arctic forest and lays into them despite being pretty badly wrecked; it's snowing and he's sweating buckets while having to punch his wound to stay conscious. Despite all of this (and receiving another lightsaber wound from Finn) he knocks Rey unconscious in seconds, seriously injures Finn and manages to dominate Rey once she wakes up, forcing her to a cliff edge. He only ultimately loses when she taps into the Force and comes back stronger; by this point, anyone else with those sort of wounds would be able to be taken down by a strong breeze, let alone a competent fighter who suddenly discovered she has martial precognition. Compare and contrast with Obi-Wan fighting Dooku in AotC - a cut on a leg and an arm and he's completely down. Anakin and Mace Windu lose an arm, and that's them taken out of the runnings. Kylo Ren meanwhile, doesn't even make a sound when he's wounded; about the closest he comes at any point is sharp intakes of breath when he's punching his own abdomen wound. Kylo Ren isn't weak, he's a freaking tank. The First Order, meanwhile, really is more akin to a terrorist group or a snappier version of something like ISIS than a full military power; they lack the strength and coverage of the Empire at its prime and effectively have to go for a leadership decapitation strike and then storm the Core Worlds whilst everything's in chaos. I think you're right on the money about the dirty bomb comparison; without it, they haven't got the legs to brute force blitzkreig the galaxy. I actually don't mind the fact that the First Order are portrayed as having structural and experiential weaknesses; they're obviously supposed to be analogous to a Neo-Nazi resurgent group and consequently populated by fanatics and people pining for the 'good old days' who may not have necessarily actually experienced them, so their misteps and lack of experience do actually make them a bit more realistic rather than simply being an unstoppable juggernaut without flaw. It should be noted that despite the lacklustre leadership of Hux (ancilliary sources seem to be suggesting he and Phasma got their positions through fanatacism backed up with nepotism and corruption), the First Order have actually been remarkably successful in destroying the New Republic leadership and military capabilities, seizing the Core Worlds and almost fatally weakening the Resistance (albeit pyhrrically with the loss of their leader and the crippling of their de facto capital, The Supremacy). You're absolutely right - Dooku's lightsaber style (Makashi) is supposed to be focused on fencing-style dueling while Kenobi's style (Soresu) is better suited for defense, but can be pried apart by the sort of fancy blade-work of Makashi. Conversely, Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber syle (Djem So) was based on brute force blocking and counter-attack, and so simply smashed through Dooku's more fancy lightsaber technique when he finally tapped into the Dark Side and let loose; it was weaker however against Obi-Wan's defensive Soresu, allowing him to continually hold off Anakin and give ground, leading him into dangerous terrain that could tip the balance. I think Ren is supposed to be using Vader's Djem-So power style, but I've no clue what Rey's doing, and I'm not sure she does either; it's interesting to note that when she first duels Ren but before she taps into the Force, she wields her lightsaber awkwardly as if it's a staff (understandably as that seems to be the weapon she's most familiar with).

Rey really isn't brilliant at everything, by quite a way; while she's obviously anomalously powerful with the Force (the exploration of which is her character's main story trajectory) and a good mechanic and fighter (due to her life as a scavenger), her other skills aren't exactly top tier and she doesn't instantly excel in them. She's a fair pilot (again due to her scavenger experience), but she still smashes the Falcon all over the place initially and has to rely on leading her opponent into terrain that she's intimately familiar with to give her an advantage. She completely fucks up the situation with the Rathtars and almost gets everyone killed. When confronted by Stormtroopers on Takodana, she bungles a clean shot by forgetting to take the safety off, allowing the Stormtrooper to get off his shot first, and while she takes down the first two troopers, half of those shots are way off (look closely at where one of the two shots at the second trooper lands, she's not even close). Her first fight with Kylo Ren involves her running away from him terrified and completely unable to touch him while he casually shuts her down with the Force, begins to Mind Rape her then knocks her unconscious. Her second fight with Ren has her being knocked unconscious by him in seconds. And when she finally regains consciousness and faces him again, he continually dominates her and forces her back until she's on the edge of a cliff, despite the fact that Ren at this point is literally punching his own wounds to stave off unconsciousness from the gaping hole in his abdomen he's bleeding out from for the last 15 minutes, Rey only besting him when she finally taps into the Force. Her plan of recruiting Luke to help the Resistance is a bust. She embarrasses herself at the start of her Jedi training by 'reaching out' literally, then makes a mental beeline straight into the dark side nexus to Luke's horror. Then stupidly sticks her head into it against his prior advice. She also incidentally pisses the frog person custodians off something chronic. She's manipulated by both Ren and Snoke through the Force bond, falling for Snoke's plan hook line and sinker. When she faces him, she's entirely helpless against him and only survives due to Ren's betrayal. She then tries to turn Ben, and fails. ..... She may be able to pull off some decent Force skills (and even some of those are slightly iffy; the Mind Trick that she tries after learning that she can influence minds from instinctively pushing back against Ren fails multiple times initially), but the idea that she's instantly flawless or the best at everything she does isn't really true. I'm also a bit scratching my head at the "Everyone loves Rey" bit; her peers on Jakku aren't exactly back-slapping buddies with her, Luke isn't all over her and the frog-person custodians on Anch-To despise her. Han warms to her due to her mechanical skills and interest in the Falcon, while Finn forms a bond with her due to her being the only person actively helping him on Jakku. Is this any different from Luke, really? Han is wary of him but quickly warms up, and the Rebellion immediately welcomes him with open arms.

I'd argue that's.... a teensy bit of an exaggeration there; even if you haven't been keen on the sequel trilogy, the films have both received critical success and performed extremely well financially. The Last Jedi was controversial, but mainly amongst the hardcore fanbase, and even then not universally by any stretch of the imagination; it was still a competently put together and acted movie even if you didn't like the direction they took, and was well received amongst critics and casual audience goers. Compare and contrast with the train wreck that is the Sonic movie, or the disasters that were Sonic 06 and the Rise of Lyric, or the lacklustre reception of the last few games (sans Sonic Mania); at this point, having a love it or hate it controversial game would be a huge step up in Sonic Team's performance. Even when Star Wars was churning out critically panned films (i.e. the Prequels), it was still an unstoppable juggernaut producing reams of additional (and more successful) content. Sonic.... not so much.

To be honest, I'd prioritise altering Sonic's bizarrely proportioned body to something less fugly over altering his face; not sure how much they could do now though.

I don't really think that the Star Wars franchise is even in the same ballpark as Sonic; even at its lowest ebb, the Star Wars prequels made a ridiculous amount of money and while their stories may have been desparately mediocre, they still managed to effectively world build and allow for a large amount of far better spin off material to be created, keeping audience interest. The Sequel trilogy meanwhile has been extremely successful in comparison both commercially and critically; even the more controversial The Last Jedi was only so mainly among Star Wars fans who disagreed with Luke Skywalker's character development. Despite all of this, Star Wars has never had a low like Sonic '06 - the majority of Sonic's titles since 1998 have been ok to awful (with the exception of Mania and possibly Generations). For Star Wars meanwhile, even Solo, the one film that wasn't a huge commercial success, was still fairly decent; for Sonic fans, the next game being somewhat ok would be considered a huge step up compared to what we've had from Sonic Team historically.