Shaping Canon: Where does Sonic CD fit in the timeline?

[Sparky]

Before Sonic2.

My reasons is the littleplanet.

CD happens in December, A month later, Sonic 2 happens. Sonic 2 happens for about under a week. Sonic 3 happens a few weeks later. Sonic 3 takes place for a week. Sonic 4 happens a few weeks after. Sonic 4 episode II happens a few months after Episode I. That should be a month right?

[ProfessorZolo]

I'm wondering about CD being before 2...

Mostly because of how in 4-1, Eggman was said to be on a tight budget. It figures to me that, in 4-2, he arrives at Little Planet, finds the broken Metal Sonic, and, because he's still skint, he chooses to repair it.

That would help towards explaining the (physically) stronger versions of Metal Sonic that appear in 2 and 3&K.

[NintendoSoul]

I always thought Sonic CD took place after Sonic the Hedgehog but before Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

Edited March 17, 2012 by NintendoSoul

[Mangoaxe5]

I place Sonic CD in between Sonic 1 and Sonic 2.

There are way too many hints that point to the game being in development before Sonic 2 for me to ignore.

Truthfully I don't think that Sega give much thought to where Sonic CD was suppose to go when they were working on the game.

[Marcello]

Before Sonic2.

My reasons is the littleplanet.

CD happens in December, A month later, Sonic 2 happens. Sonic 2 happens for about under a week. Sonic 3 happens a few weeks later. Sonic 3 takes place for a week. Sonic 4 happens a few weeks after. Sonic 4 episode II happens a few months after Episode I. That should be a month right?

[RDNexus]

I think they should retcon the 1-year period for the Little Planet to appear again, to me the games have always had a few weeks of distance of each other.

[Abominal SnowTaz]

I place Sonic CD in between Sonic 1 and Sonic 2.

There are way too many hints that point to the game being in development before Sonic 2 for me to ignore.

Truthfully I don't think that Sega give much thought to where Sonic CD was suppose to go when they were working on the game.

[JezMM]

Well, that's half true right because Sonic CD was going to be Sonic 2 but they decided to make Sonic CD and Sonic 2 different. I don't know i'm confused now.

I'm under the impression CD was never going to BE Sonic 2 from the start, just that it was intended as a follow-up for the Mega CD. I guess maybe in the same way Sonic 1 8-bit was a follow-down(?) for the Master System. They did say they were sort of trying to recreate Sonic 1 levels in a more interesting way. I guess eventually development progressed into it becoming it's own total thing.

[Abominal SnowTaz]

I feel like 8-bit Sonic 1 is the same thing only with development restraints. Then again it might as well a 'follow-down' since it's the same game title but has here/there differences.

[TheOcelot]

Further arguments regarding CD taking place between Sonic 1 and Sonic 2:

Super Sonic was created in Sonic 2 but was not in CD.

Interestingly the idea of having seven emeralds which became the norm (whereas Sonic 1 had six emeralds) appeared in both Sonic 2 and CD. seven chaos emeraldd and seven time stones respectively.

One of the members of staff in SEGA (I forget who) went to SEGA of America after Sonic 1 to work on Sonic 2. Whereas SEGA of Japan worked on CD. A bit of friendly competition?

In Sonic CD there is a hidden picture of Tails standing next to a car with the caption 'See you next game' i.e. Sonic 2. Which supports my theory that CD was ahead of Sonic 2 in development before they gave the green light for Sonic 2 to be released first. This allowed more time to polish up CD.

Edited March 18, 2012 by MilesKnightwing

[Diogenes]

Super Sonic was created in Sonic 2 but was not in CD.

[neezTHEhuman]

Here's a little bit of info that I picked up while reading a similar thread on another Sonic message board. Apparently Never Lake, above which Little Planet appears, is on South Island. South Island is where Sonic 1 took place so if this info is mentioned somewhere in the game canon (Sonic CD instruction manual for example) and not just made up by the poster then it's more evidence to support the 1,CD then 2 timeline.

[TheOcelot]

Well yes, but there weren't any Chaos Emeralds in CD. Though I think CD was supposed to have something similar, but it got cut? Not a full transformation, but like, speed shoes+invincibility.

Edited March 18, 2012 by MilesKnightwing

[Ekajra]

While development time and cameos/easter eggs are all fine and dandy, I'm not sure they should really factor that strongly into a discussion over timeline placement. After all - and I realize it's dangerous bringing one of the most infamously convoluted timelines in video game history into this discussion - Wind Waker was developed before Skyward Sword, but that doesn't mean Wind Waker takes place first.

Now personally, I've always thought of Sonic CD as taking place after S3&K, mainly because of the progression of Metal Sonics. Also I never played it when I was younger, so I'm not as well versed in all the minor details of the game. But the way I see it, since the Metal Sonic design from CD is the one Robotnik now uses the most, it seems likely that Sonic CD takes place the latest.

However, while scrolling through the thread I did think of a good argument for CD taking place between Sonic 1 and 2. Robotnik builds Metal Sonic in Sonic CD, but it gets destroyed. After his plan to take over Little Planet didn't work, he gets the idea for building his own spherical space fortress from scratch, which becomes the Death Egg. In keeping with the grandiosity of the Death Egg, and possibly because he didn't expect Sonic to actually get that far, he built a much larger and bulkier, and silver, Metal Sonic to guard the Death Egg and

His resources are mostly focused on the Death Egg so he doesn't put a lot of effort into it (plus he knows there are no rings on the Death Egg, so why even bother?)

After the Death Egg crashes, Robotnik has quite a bit of spare time on his hands, so he builts the much sleeker, but still quite tall, Mecha Sonic. He only sends this robot out, however, after he has already re-launched the Death Egg, almost as a last ditch effort to stop Sonic from hijacking the Death Egg again.

So Sonic CD could fit before the Death Egg saga, but personally I've just always thought it was after.

[Diogenes]

While development time and cameos/easter eggs are all fine and dandy, I'm not sure they should really factor that strongly into a discussion over timeline placement. After all - and I realize it's dangerous bringing one of the most infamously convoluted timelines in video game history into this discussion - Wind Waker was developed before Skyward Sword, but that doesn't mean Wind Waker takes place first.

Yeah, but they stated that explicitly. And even ignoring the Zelda timeline being convoluted and it being split into separate timelines, it's of a very different sort than Sonic's; Sonic is the same Sonic in every game, and it's generally assumed games happen in the same order as release unless we're given reason to think otherwise, whereas, with some exceptions, the Zelda games star completely different versions of the characters (save for Ganon/dorf) separated by some unknown length of time, and there's clearly no connection between time of release/creation and their chronological order.

[Rexeljet]

In Sonic CD there is a hidden picture of Tails standing next to a car with the caption 'See you next game' i.e. Sonic 2. Which supports my theory that CD was ahead of Sonic 2 in development before they gave the green light for Sonic 2 to be released first. This allowed more time to polish up CD.

The 'Next Game' isn't Sonic 2. It's Sonic Drift. That's why there's a car behind Tails, and why he's holding these goggles or whatever they are. In Japan, Sonic Drift was released between Sonic CD and Sonic 3, so it was the next game in the series. The fact that the game was not released outside of Japan (Even though its sequel was) may be the reason why it's 'hidden'.

[Koopalmier]

^

Mind blown.

By the way, guys.

Mecha Sonic (Silver Sonic) and Metal Sonic are different robots. Sonic Adventure has both of them in some kind of metastasis in the Final Egg, and they're different robots. One is the slow, bulky robot that was used to guard the Death Egg, and one is the ultimate copy of Sonic that was either left scrapped on Little Planet (S4E2 backstory... although I'm curious about what the Japanese version states) or repaired then used a few times until Heroes.

[...]

Eh, to keep it simple, I always thought CD happened between 1 and 2.

[SKSpawn]

I alwayss considered Sonic CD to take place between Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Sonic looks and plays exactly like in Sonic the Hedgehog, is just learning the spindash, and it kind of makes sense that Eggman's would seek to improve on Silver Sonic's flaws by trading bulk and power for Metal Sonic's speed (not saying they're the same machine (though they technically could be in terms of hardware/software...) but learning from one robot Sonic in service of another makes sense to me). Explaining away tthe Super Peel-Out is slightly harder, as Sonic doesn't use it in the subsequent Mega Drive games, but the only other one I can recall that he uses it in is Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble so it doesn't bother me/my timeline much because, even though it's a really cool move, he hardly ever uses it so using it's presence/absence as a reason to place Sonic CD anywhere but between Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 seems arbitrary, at best.

I suppose there's a very slight possibility that it takes place before Sonic the Hedgehog, but I'm fairly certain almost all the instruction booklets, storylines, promotional material, and backstory we can find points to Sonic the Hedgehog as being Sonic's first encounter with Eggman - even if it doesn't, you can't deny that Sonic doesn't spindash in Sonic the Hedgehog, yet he does in Sonic CD and near-enough all subsequent titles, indicating that Sonic CD takes place after the first game.

[Marcello]

Am I the only person who finds the whole "He's learning the Spindash in CD" argument stupid?

And Sonic 1 is not Sonic's first encounter with Eggman.

[Chili Dawg]

Am I the only person who finds the whole "He's learning the Spindash in CD" argument stupid?

Edited March 20, 2012 by Flats

[Abominal SnowTaz]

The 'Next Game' isn't Sonic 2. It's Sonic Drift. That's why there's a car behind Tails, and why he's holding these goggles or whatever they are. In Japan, Sonic Drift was released between Sonic CD and Sonic 3, so it was the next game in the series. The fact that the game was not released outside of Japan (Even though its sequel was) may be the reason why it's 'hidden'.

I was just thinking about that connection with Sonic Drift. And if that's the case, it kind of pushes the '1-CD-2' theory to '2-CD-drift-3', which makes this even more confusing.

[RDNexus]

I was just thinking about that connection with Sonic Drift. And if that's the case, it kind of pushes the '1-CD-2' theory to '2-CD-drift-3', which makes this even more confusing.

I don't count spin-offs like Drift...

[Abominal SnowTaz]

I know and honestly, it shouldn't count, but you can't help but make that connection.

[Barry the Nomad]

Games happened in release date order, except for Sonic 4 which takes place between Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic Adventure, and Sonic Generations which takes place after Sonic Colors but jumps back to previous titles but does not impact past plots in any way.