Aaron Webber's first interview since returning to SEGA of America!

[KingIgort]

 

Quite frankly I don't know whether it's more baffling that SEGA just expects us to accept this whole two worlds thing after 25 years of indicating nothing of the sort, or that they think such an explanation is necessary in the first place.

 

To be fair, they're not "expecting us to accept it," because they still haven't done anything to indicate it within the games themselves. Aaron was just telling us how Sonic Team view it internally. It's highly possible they never will, because it doesn't really matter. And it's not like this idea has come out of nowhere for us: they built the entire concept for one of their shows around the idea in Sonic X, which is a decade old at this point.

 

 

I mean I guess I can see where their coming from. The various locales we've seen in Sonic games do possess different terrain and play home to different species, which doesn't happen at all in real life. I mean if you go to China, Australia, Egypt, and Antarctica they all look the same and possess the same flora and fauna. Go to any one of these places and you can see kangaroos, pandas, penguins and jackals frolicking among the bamboo shoots and papyrus sedge.

 

Oh wait, no they don't, and no you can't, because geographical and ecological diversity are things which exist.

 

Not sure I see what you're getting at here. Did you just establish a point and then prove yourself wrong in the next paragraph? Who's saying any of these things?

 

I've always maintained that Sonic's Earth is simply an exaggerated version of our own, because no matter how surreal it can get always remains at least somewhat grounded in recognizable features of our own world (at least until Lost World decided to throw in doughnut dimension).

 

Again, to be fair, the Dessert Palace from Lost World isn't on "Earth" it's on The Lost Hex, which could just be taken as it's own thing.

[Nepenthe]

The second point he was making was sarcasm, and indeed it's one of my sticking points when it comes to people pointing out the aesthetic differences in the franchise as proof that there's somehow no believable consistency on a base level (not that you're making this argument; I'm speaking in general.)

The real world is full of a mind-boggling amount of natural differentiation that can make places seem alien or unrecognizable. Aside from the numerous biomes we have, there are caves that are made of nothing but geometric crystal formations. There are areas where rocks were naturally formed and withered in such a way as to stand upright. There are waterfalls taller than the Empire State. There's deserts with dunes several stories tall. There's islands and areas with unique or mega flora that look like something out of an absurdist painting. Hell, in Africa there's a naturally-colored pink lake. Like, Pepto Bismol pink. Seriously Google it; it's adorable.

It smacks of underestimating or not knowing about the sheer diversity present on this planet to claim that the amount of artistic diversity in Sonic is somehow completely impossible to reconcile on a single, Earth-like planet.

[Tara]

Hell, in Africa there's a naturally-colored pink lake. Like, Pepto Bismol pink. Seriously Google it; it's adorable.

[NoirSuede]

Aaron, I have 2 questions for you :

 

1. Does Sega of Japan have any involvement on the Boom sub-series ?

 

2. Since Sega of America is taking care of Boom, does this mean that Sega of Japan's taking care of the normal continuity by themselves or does Sega of America still influence Sega of Japan on Modern Sonic ?

 

also can we have yakuza 0 world-wide plz

[KingIgort]

The second point he was making was sarcasm, and indeed it's one of my sticking points when it comes to people pointing out the aesthetic differences in the franchise as proof that there's somehow no believable consistency on a base level (not that you're making this argument; I'm speaking in general.)

 

Ahh, was just phrased super weird, I guess.

 

I think that I agree, too. The idea of Sonic's world being two separate worlds doesn't work for how I view the series, but if that's how The Powers That Be see it... well, it's not my series, it's theirs, so I'm not going to be too hung up on it.

[Nepenthe]

Just because the higher ups say something doesn't mean it's above criticism or reproach.

[KingIgort]

Just because the higher ups say something doesn't mean it's above criticism or reproach.

 

True, but when it pertains to something that's kind of innocuous, I don't see much point in making too big a deal of it.

 

Though to stress a point, I did say I'm not going to get too hung up on it, that doesn't mean I don't think anyone else should if they want to.

[Tani Coyote]

I think it'd be nice if there was a thread purely for asking questions.

The reason I say so is there's a lot of debate about the actual interview going on here, so in the event Mr. Webber decides to return here, it would be polite if any questions were neatly presented one after the other.

[Nestor]

It's also weird that Mobius proponents keep insisting that an alien planet makes more sense, despite the fact that that raises just as many questions as it does answers since the similarities to our Earth make no sense in a scenario where humanity has long since achieved interstellar travel and large scale planet colonization (because the likelihood of an alien planet being an abstract Earth, complete with humans exactly like us that evolved naturally, is zero). You're telling me it's easier to swallow the fact that after all of these amazing achievements we remade San Francisco, Egypt, and China, rather than these things simply being symbolic markers of Earth in a fictional universe? No. At this point, Mobius proponents have a much bigger job at explaining a decent narrative that reconciles the obviously Earth-like planet as not being Earth at all than they put on.

 

If Sonic were a hard-sci setting, sure, but in a light-hearted quasi-realistic setting? Lord of the Rings isn't a light-hearted quasi-realistic setting, yet the completely alien world of Middle Earth bears strong similarities to many past Earth cultures. D&D and its offshoots are the same - explicitly non-Earth worlds with human history-esqe elements, despite the improbability of that happening. It's a very common occurence in all areas of fiction; I don't think the existence of pyramids or suspension bridges should be an insurmountable problem if other more serious franchises can get away with it.

 

 

Do you assume that any story that doesn't show all 7 billion human beings on Earth is some post-apocalyptic wasteland where only the characters we see are the only humans alive? Of course not; you extrapolate that fact by filling in the blanks with implied information from the story and setting. The same goes for Sonic, where almost no one is surprised at anthro animals walking around and Sega instead clarified that Knuckles is the last echidna, as well as that Shadow was man-made, precisely because they have always operated on the assumption that these animals were naturally born, thus have ancestry, and thus are part of a species with a bigger population. Otherwise, these bits of information would be redundant. Sega is not obligated to show billions of anthro animals to spoonfeed extraneous information to an audience that has failed in discerning where the burden of proof lies due to simple inferrence.

 

I haven't argued that they need to show "billions of anthro animals", nor have I questioned the fact that they must have some sort of civilisation somewhere - as you say that is obvious from inference. The oddity is that after 25 years, something that in most settings is introduced very early on has still not even been touched upon; every other Sonic medium, from the comics to Sonic X, established very basic details like this early on, and it helped flesh out and make Sonic's world more coherent.

 

In the games, the Knuckles, the Nocturnus, the Gaia mythos, GUN, even Soleanna, all of these have had some backstory - yet the primary civilisation of the main characters hasn't even been seen, let alone been fleshed out, despite the characters having travelled the world extensively. After so long, that seems unusual.

 

 

Same goes with Earth, and it's disingenuous to say that nothing in the Sonic games resembles our planet when almost every flora, fauna, element, tool, and location is simply an abstracted or even a realistic version of the respective item in real life. I don't need photorealism to tell me that Green Hill is made up of grass, dirt, rocks, trees, flowers, and water.

 

By that broad standard, however, almost every alien world resembles Earth. It's not that the basic components like dirt, rocks and trees cannot or do not exist on Earth, but the disparity of different configuration of the landmasses, countries, history and seemingly geopolitics, all of which define our planet as "Earth" and not a different world.

 

Suspension of disbelief allows wiggle room, and the amount of that required is down to personal preference. The existence of a fictional island or country, a hitherto unknown race, or a historical addition here and there are usually not a big issue; up until Sonic Unleashed, I personally would argue that for the most part the Sonic franchise stayed within the boundaries of suspension of disbelief.

 

I would suggest however that after that, the degree of alteration from our Earth begs the question of why, if they wanted to alter it so substantially, set it on Earth and not somewhere else? If you really want to have a world differing from Earth so much, why not just have it on a different world rather than bash a square beg into a round hole?

 

 

The explanation of dinosaurs in DBZ holds as much importance to the strength of its plots and appeal as explaining the origins of anthro characters in Sonic's universe beyond "talking animals are appealing," which is why I equated them (speaking of which, I'd like to know what plot holes are created by not explaining through canon why Sonic is a talking animal.)

 

I'd disagree - the backstories of the primary characters are more important than those of random secondary or tertiary ones, hence me comparing it to the saiyans rather than the dinosaurs.

 

Not sure where the bit about plot holes came from, though, this isn't an argument I've made.

 

 

As for Saiyans, Goku was retconned from human freak of nature in DB to alien in DBZ. He existed as the former in Dragonball, and no, audiences didn't rebuke the work as terrible because "humans don't have tails."

 

That rather underscores my point though, doesn't it? Goku's backstory was minimal to non-existant in the early installment - and that was fine, you don't need an infodump of everything immediately. However, as they expanded the universe, they felt it necessary to flesh their primary character's backstory out; understandably so, as this is how most fiction operates. Sonic meanwhile hasn't done this in 25 years, which I'd suggest is an unusual oversight.

 

 

I'm also not suggesting that TMNT as it is would be fine without explaining what either of those things are. My argument is that the quality of a plot is determined by elaborating only on what is necessary for the plot to work. What those necessary components are isn't universal because writing is an artform whose principles are guidelines and tips, not scientific or rational laws (e.g., you MUST explain why an animal talks or the story WILL be bad), so while you can't change the origins of the TMNT, that doesn't mean you can conclude that the classic Looney Tunes shorts are trash since no one at Warner Bros. bothered to clarify how these animals evolved to talk to humans. You cannot make an argument that the way one artwork does things in its story is how every relevant artwork should do things in order to be good.

 

I think you may be misreading me; this is not an issue (in my opinion, at any rate) where this detail is a gamebreaker that dictates whether something is 'good' or 'bad', merely that it would enhance the overall plot by fleshing out something that, in other iterations of the Sonic media (and in many other works of fiction) is usually established early on.

 

That Sonic could coast along minus this detail without the whole franchise collapsing does not necessarily mean that defining the setting backstory to a greater degree is undesirable. For example, there was no need to flesh out the backstory of the Knuckles tribe - the franchise would have been absolutley fine not knowing that history - yet doing so not only added a greater depth and richness to the Sonic world, but also set up the backstory for two (and a bit) games.

 

 

Your personal thresholds are not enough to found an acceptable argument for the quality of a work in the same way that someone loving Sonic 06 doesn't make it a good video game. This entire time you've made the notion that the franchise's storytelling is bad in part because Sega failed to explain why Sonic has human qualities, when you've neither defined what narrative is impossible to understand solely because we lack this information nor how Sonic is an exceptional case to other works like DBZ or Kung Fu Panda where anthro animals exist on Earth totally unexplained. You've failed to make any reasonable correlation that doesn't stray from merely reiterating your personal preferences for certain information.

 

The 'quality' of a work (except perhaps in extreme cases) is not something that can be objectively debated; a person's personal preferences will always determine the benefit they derive from it, and I made it very explicit in my last post that you quoted that this was so. A video game like Sonic 06 is not the best analogy to use in this instance because there really are objective facets (unresponsive controls, glitches, etc) that can affect quality.

 

The name of a planet or why an animal can talk are not objectively necessary facets to enjoying a story, because the fact remains there's plenty of quality media examples where neither of these things are given or spelled out.

 

In fairness, you yourself earlier argued that the way one piece of artwork does things in its story is not necessarily how every relevant piece of artwork should do things in order to be good; that examples of quality media exist that do not spell these things out does not mean that no other piece of artwork will benefit from them being addressed.

 

 

And again, I lay the blame for the inconsistency partly at the feet of fans who were unhappy with the changes introduced in Adventure to the point that Sega sought fit to try and reconcile competing canon interests in the first place, as well as those people who claim that Sonic is some unique franchise on the basis of its aesthetics without actually making an argument that's not easily rebuked by bringing up another comparable franchise people take at face value.

 

Do you think SEGA made this move to two worlds simply to placate fans, or because they themselves felt things (certainly post-Unleashed) had become contradictory? Aaron himself seemed to believe that trying to reconcile the different eras of continuity was confusing at best. Bearing in mind people complained about it being on Earth since 1998, it seems odd to only suddenly pick up on this now - but then I suppose we can't know one way or the other for sure.

 

Again, lay out exactly WHY we need to be given an explanation for Sonic's existence in order to be privy to better writing. What problem in the writing can be objectively pointed to as a direct result of this lack of information? Or is this entire argument based on the fact that you simply prefer more explanation than what may be necessary?

There are many aspects of a franchise that don't need to be defined, but their definition adds to the world, fleshing it out and making a more concrete place. Look at Lord of the Rings; did we need a detailed explanation of the Hobbit's pipe-weed? Would there be a narrative that is "impossible to understand solely because we lack this information" were it to be removed? And yet the rich, extensive details and fleshing out of the world are some of the reason why the books are so well-loved.

 

I suspect that this is where our points of view diverge; you don't feel this is a necessary fact, while I feel that the universe would be expanded and thus benefitted by what in most other settings of its nature is a fairly quickly revealed detail. That it is 'necessary' in the sense that the franchise will cease to function without it is not so much my point rather than that it will enhance the setting. Some fans may not feel that the fact is important; others will. However, I'd suggest that it will not detract from the franchise in any way, and so be a net benefit.

[Mauro Fonseca]

But you HAVE seen the main characters' civilization? Just because there's humans, doesn't mean it's not their civilization. The humans are a stylization choice to make the funny animals immediately more important, but Rouge still existed despite not appearing before SA2, Tails still existed before Sonic 2, etc. Amy lived in Station Square, Rouge and Shadow work with GUN, Eggman sells robots, Tails corresponds with Spagonia University. That IS their civilization. Earth IS their civilization, as much as Sonic Rush Adventure's islands are Blaze's despite her not being a koala.

[Nepenthe]

My replies will be in bold, as cutting the quote on a phone is more work than it should be.

If Sonic were a hard-sci setting, sure, but in a light-hearted quasi-realistic setting? Lord of the Rings isn't a light-hearted quasi-realistic setting, yet the completely alien world of Middle Earth bears strong similarities to many past Earth cultures. D&D and its offshoots are the same - explicitly non-Earth worlds with human history-esqe elements, despite the improbability of that happening. It's a very common occurence in all areas of fiction; I don't think the existence of pyramids or suspension bridges should be an insurmountable problem if other more serious franchises can get away with it.

 

That's not an entirely apt comparison as the locations I named are not generic ideas and locales like "castle," but explicitly specific places wrought with a historical context that would make no real sense being replicated to the degree they would be Mobius or some other alien planet without explicit explanation as to why anyone would do so. You would have to make the argument that San Francisco is either worth salvaging (lol) or that that part of the world had literally the exact same historical and cultural conditions necessary for modern day San Francisco to exist on it as it does on Earth (lol), at which point you aren't making a convincing case for the planet being completely alien. 

 

I haven't argued that they need to show "billions of anthro animals", nor have I questioned the fact that they must have some sort of civilisation somewhere - as you say that is obvious from inference. The oddity is that after 25 years, something that in most settings is introduced very early on has still not even been touched upon; every other Sonic medium, from the comics to Sonic X, established very basic details like this early on, and it helped flesh out and make Sonic's world more coherent.

 

If you inherently agree that Sega has already inferred that there are stable populations of anthros elsewhere through various pieces of information given, then what exactly is the issue?

In the games, the Knuckles, the Nocturnus, the Gaia mythos, GUN, even Soleanna, all of these have had some backstory - yet the primary civilisation of the main characters hasn't even been seen, let alone been fleshed out, despite the characters having travelled the world extensively. After so long, that seems unusual.

 

KKM already elaborated on the point I wanted to make that the anthros are basic citizenry of different places just like the humans are. You have seen it, you simply haven't been give direct confirmation with primary or secondary NPCs in most games because again, it can all be directly inferred from the first-hand information received about the characters from different sources.

 

By that broad standard, however, almost every alien world resembles Earth. It's not that the basic components like dirt, rocks and trees cannot or do not exist on Earth, but the disparity of different configuration of the landmasses, countries, history and seemingly geopolitics, all of which define our planet as "Earth" and not a different world.

 

Suspension of disbelief allows wiggle room, and the amount of that required is down to personal preference. The existence of a fictional island or country, a hitherto unknown race, or a historical addition here and there are usually not a big issue; up until Sonic Unleashed, I personally would argue that for the most part the Sonic franchise stayed within the boundaries of suspension of disbelief.

 

I would suggest however that after that, the degree of alteration from our Earth begs the question of why, if they wanted to alter it so substantially, set it on Earth and not somewhere else? If you really want to have a world differing from Earth so much, why not just have it on a different world rather than bash a square beg into a round hole?

 

I'm not entirely sure what your rebuttal is here. First, you say that the disparity of differences between our own planet and fictional alien world is what defines the latter as alien. That's not saying much either considering that most fictional worlds have some level of disparity, and you have not established the dearth of differences necessary to classify a planet as "Earth" or "alien" at face.

In my opinion though, you would need backstory or context of some sort in order to establish a planet- no matter how kooky it looks- as not being our own, as with audiences having no real-life points of reference of civilized life on other planets, we area liable to assume that a fictional setting is Earth until proven otherwise. You noting that alien planets tend to look like Earth is part of the point. We have no idea what alien life looks like, so we have to use relatively blatant storytelling measures- such as visibly showing spaceships or other means of transportation, using the planet's name, having humans react in fear, distrust, or awe at new species, etc.- to tell audiences when a planet really is a new planet. Subsequently, I would say the basic aesthetic tenets of Sonic at face value do not establish an alien world. There is nothing in the realm of Sonic that makes it more likely to believe that the setting absolutely cannot be Earth (aside from making up the name Mobius, which itself is as much fulfilling the burden of proof as it is explaining why some locations are colorful in the first place). There is nothing inherently alien about talking animals with superpowers in fiction due to the overwhelming context of their use, which is that they are almost always native Earthlings.

Also, why are you using Unleashed now as the demarcation line for the breaking of reasonable suspension of disbelief? Your original post was lamenting them changing the canon in the first place, which would have been Adventure, not Unleashed. Second, what in Unleashed is incompatible with the old lore and tone, especially when we know they used real life places as inspiration for the locations? Third, your questions are again implying that stylistic differentiation between Earth and any fictional Earth is inherently contradictory, and again I don't know what to tell you other than writers have always liked abstracting Earth. 

 

I'd disagree - the backstories of the primary characters are more important than those of random secondary or tertiary ones, hence me comparing it to the saiyans rather than the dinosaurs.

 

Not sure where the bit about plot holes came from, though, this isn't an argument I've made.

Backstory is as important as an author deems it to be important to the work in question. If a secondary character has greater backstory than a main character, there's no inherent argument about what the quality of the work would be if the author bothered with giving the main character that same level of detail. Again, specific works have specific needs.

And I asked that question because I was under the assumption that you thought the franchise was in an active state of decay as a direct result of not elaborating on Sonic's origins.

 

That rather underscores my point though, doesn't it? Goku's backstory was minimal to non-existant in the early installment - and that was fine, you don't need an infodump of everything immediately. However, as they expanded the universe, they felt it necessary to flesh their primary character's backstory out; understandably so, as this is how most fiction operates. Sonic meanwhile hasn't done this in 25 years, which I'd suggest is an unusual oversight.

 

Not entirely. In the context of an audience watching DB for the years that it existed without DBZ, the quality of the work did not suffer because Toriyama asked you to accept the fact that Goku was an adopted human child. Subsequently, you will find significant and eloquent opponents who believe Dragon Ball as a whole got worse as the focus on the alien arms race undoubtedly started by giving Goku an entirely new origin story cut out the adventurous heart and soul of what Dragon Ball was really about.

Subsequently, I think it's jumping the gun to say that Toriyama thought it was in any way necessary to turn Goku into an alien without his word on it, especially considering he is excessively flimsy on canon and does what he pleases for the hell of it. I think it would be an uphill battle to claim that Goku NEEDED to become an alien to keep the franchise going, if only because, again in a meta sense, he wasn't always an alien. 

 

I think you may be misreading me; this is not an issue (in my opinion, at any rate) where this detail is a gamebreaker that dictates whether something is 'good' or 'bad', merely that it would enhance the overall plot by fleshing out something that, in other iterations of the Sonic media (and in many other works of fiction) is usually established early on.

 

That Sonic could coast along minus this detail without the whole franchise collapsing does not necessarily mean that defining the setting backstory to a greater degree is undesirable. For example, there was no need to flesh out the backstory of the Knuckles tribe - the franchise would have been absolutley fine not knowing that history - yet doing so not only added a greater depth and richness to the Sonic world, but also set up the backstory for two (and a bit) games.

 

On the other side of the coin, the tortured elaboration of Shadow's past definitely set the franchise back quite a few years. Mere elaboration isn't an inherent plus to every single work. 

The 'quality' of a work (except perhaps in extreme cases) is not something that can be objectively debated; a person's personal preferences will always determine the benefit they derive from it, and I made it very explicit in my last post that you quoted that this was so. A video game like Sonic 06 is not the best analogy to use in this instance because there really are objective facets (unresponsive controls, glitches, etc) that can affect quality.

 

That is false. We can determine objective problems with writing regardless of our personal feelings about that writing, and that's partly why I used Sonic 06 as the example. You yourself recognized the existence of plot holes without refuting that they are simply the result of subjective audience feelings, meaning we can consider that a flaw. Redundant dialogue is a flaw. Actions by characters that cannot be successfully argued to make sense in the context of a situation is a flaw. Furthermore in a visual storytelling medium, breaking the 180 degree rule without proper set up of the location is a flaw. Redundant shots not meant to visually explain in narrative redundancy is a flaw. Bad mo-cap in a work not designed to use bad mo-cap as a story point or source of humor is a flaw. It is a fallacy to imply that art does not succeed on any objective strengths inherent to the medium or work.

 

In fairness, you yourself earlier argued that the way one piece of artwork does things in its story is not necessarily how every relevant piece of artwork should do things in order to be good; that examples of quality media exist that do not spell these things out does not mean that no other piece of artwork will benefit from them being addressed.

 

That is true, but you've yet to explain what the franchise is explicitly missing out on by being set on Earth and by not explaining where Sonic came from. Telling me the franchise will benefit from a change is not an inherently convincing argument without properly establishing what the specific problems are that are caused by not following your suggestions. You seem to continually fall back on this being your personal opinion, but I was under the impression that you were saying something was objectively wrong. If it's not, and your argument is simply elaboration in these areas can make things better, that's only true insofar as Sega actually starts writing better stories in general. What ifs and hypotheticals aren't all that productive to debate about. 

 

Do you think SEGA made this move to two worlds simply to placate fans, or because they themselves felt things (certainly post-Unleashed) had become contradictory? Aaron himself seemed to believe that trying to reconcile the different eras of continuity was confusing at best. Bearing in mind people complained about it being on Earth since 1998, it seems odd to only suddenly pick up on this now - but then I suppose we can't know one way or the other for sure.

 

My money is on both in the sense that, with the former, Sega has proven they cannot stick to their guns worth a damn and will kowtow to almost anything so long as people bitch enough. With the latter, we don't have any concrete evidence of the extent that they're entertaining this. "Inability to reconcile the differences" could literally just be they don't exactly know in what order all of the games come in. But in general, it seems like another desperate throw at the wall than anything that was actually properly thought through, because literally no one in this fandom believed there were two planets Sonic was travelling between outside of games like Colors in the first place even if they were unhappy with the planet being Earth.

There are many aspects of a franchise that don't need to be defined, but their definition adds to the world, fleshing it out and making a more concrete place. Look at Lord of the Rings; did we need a detailed explanation of the Hobbit's pipe-weed? Would there be a narrative that is "impossible to understand solely because we lack this information" were it to be removed? And yet the rich, extensive details and fleshing out of the world are some of the reason why the books are so well-loved.

And on the other side of the comparable coin, some of the most beloved cartoons exist far without Tolkien's level of explanation, focusing instead on the simplistic set-ups of the conflicts its characters bring. I would be happy to wager that Mickey Mouse has made more money than Bilbo ever will. Regardless this is redundant. I already elaborated that my argument isn't that detail is bad; remember, I said the concept of the TMNT needs to remain explained. My argument is that you haven't put forth a convincing argument for me to take stock in any of your claims that Sonic needs to suddenly be given a backstory beyond that being your personal opinion.

 

I suspect that this is where our points of view diverge; you don't feel this is a necessary fact, while I feel that the universe would be expanded and thus benefitted by what in most other settings of its nature is a fairly quickly revealed detail. That it is 'necessary' in the sense that the franchise will cease to function without it is not so much my point rather than that it will enhance the setting. Some fans may not feel that the fact is important; others will. However, I'd suggest that it will not detract from the franchise in any way, and so be a net benefit.

Any change in general is only as strong as its inherent quality would be my nuanced opinion. I don't believe in change for change's sake, and believe that if you cannot outline the benefits in specificity then it's not entirely worth considering. In general, I prefer Sonic himself to remain without a backstory because his character has been defined as one that deliberately doesn't look back on the past and is generally present thinking, which in turn is translated into the gameplay through its speed and A-to-B endgoal design. To give him a past runs counter to the point of the character and franchise. As for setting it on an alien planet, it makes less sense than just setting it on an abstract Earth at this point because it would take more energy explaining and reconciling why the planet either adopted or naturally cultivated things like San Francisco, New York City, the White House, and Islam than is necessary. In the games, it presents a more tortured narrative to suddenly go "Everything was aliens all alonv!" than simply saying it's Sonic Team's fictional version of Earth like almost every other fictional version of Earth.

[shdowhunt60]

I will say that I prefer Mobius, mostly because I think it's a bit more inspired than just calling it Earth. There's nothing wrong with calling it Earth, it is a pretty default name, but I do like the way Mobius sounds, and feels. It gives a nice naming convention for its denizens being Mobians with their currency being Mobiums, and the name lends itself to plenty of variation. I also like how it ties into Sonic's seeming affinity for Casinos.

 

That said, I do have a bit of a problem with the whole "Two Worlds" thing. I can see where they are going with it, and I think that it worked very well for Sonic X, but I don't think it really works quite as well for the games.

 

It seems to me that it's an attempt to address the issue as to why it is the Sonic's cast appears alongside realistic humans. While I personally don't have an issue with it, after all it's something of a fantasy trope that mundane humans appear alongside fantastic creatures, I can see why someone might have problems with it. But I think that could be alleviated largely by making the art a bit more consistent than it is.

 

I digress however, I think the "Two Worlds" thing worked in Sonic X, because there was that discrepancy, and that was a point of focus. Earth is a realistic setting, and Sonic's friends clearly don't belong. Much of the show was devoted to putting this on focus. Sonic and company are complete aliens to Earth, and they had to adjust to it, while Earth had to adjust to them. It's one of those areas where even though I wish Sonic X did much more with it, that I think it did admirably in that area.

 

However, the games are different. For one, despite what people say, the only time where the games were really that hyper realistic, was with Sonic 06. Pretty much no other modern era game was like that. The closest there was, was City Escape in Sonic Adventure 2, but even that had lots of weird geometry and a colorful pallet to it, nevermind a lot of over the top aspects to it like the GUN truck. Like, for instance, I really wouldn't have a hard time imagining a place like Speed Highway being a thing in Sonic's World.

 

Even the characters themselves weren't treated like total aliens by the NPC's or the game's story. They were treated more like high-profile tourists, rather than strange beings from an alternate dimension. Everyone seemed perfectly fine with Sonic walking amongst them. I don't get the feeling like a lot of people get that Sonic and friends were really out of place, I only got that with 06.

 

And the way the games are with Sonic walking around in Station-Square in one-game, and then speeding through Metropolis the next, it makes the whole idea that Sonic's World and Earth are two separate worlds seem completely unnecessary. I mean, really? So you're telling me that Sonic just casually hops between dimensions like it's nobody's business? And the entire cast just kind of does this too? Seems really silly and unnecessary. It completely takes the charm out of traveling between dimensions. It makes scenarios where, like, Sonic goes to the Sol dimension seem a whole lot less special.

 

And this completely doesn't address the issue that Sonic's World still doesn't have a name. I mean, we have Earth... And then we have, Sonic's World? Kind of makes the whole issue even more jarring than it already is. You have one world that's named, and the other isn't? Why?

 

All-in-all, this is a mess. I think the whole two-worlds thing is completely silly, and is a pretty poor attempt on Sonic Team's behalf to avoid any real world-building.

[Gabz Girl]

So umm...I missed a lot here. XD

I agree with many here that having Sonic set in two worlds is fucking stupid and that Sega should just stick to one world. So what if Earth has furries mingling with humans and abstract, colourful worlds mixed with more realistic ones? It's an alternate universe, just go with it!

Speaking of which, I haven't seen humans in a Sonic game since Unleashed. I hope the Anniversary game brings them back plus the more "realistic" locations, but I guess we're gonna be stuck with generic colourful nostalgia pandering stages with no humans (besides Eggman) once more. 8I

[Osmium]

I've always maintained that Sonic's Earth is simply an exaggerated version of our own, because no matter how surreal it can get always remains at least somewhat grounded in recognizable features of our own world (at least until Lost World decided to throw in doughnut dimension) and because our world can get pretty surreal too. To say that Sonic's world can't be Earth because of how outlandish it can be, or that being Earth is a limitation on what can be done with the series from a setting standpoint is kind of ridiculous considering that our Earth has it's own share of seemingly outlandish features. For example, loop-de-loops can occur naturally (just ask anyone who's ever visited Arches National Park), and I'll be damned if this isn't checkerboard soil (okay, technically it's not, it's sandstone but the point stands).

 

I quite agree with what you are saying. I've always seen Sonic's Earth as just a very exaggerated, abstract version of ours. I mean, the vast majority of areas Sonic visit in games are not all that alien. Not at all. Everything you see in a Sonic game was (obviously) inspired by something here one Earth. 

 

Many of the zones are not that weird. Just about every zone in Sonic 1-3 & Knuckles really just looks like Earth except for some crazier features such as the ground having inversions and there being floating platforms and such. It's just very stylized which is perfectly okay. Even Sonic CD (which isn't even on Earth) zones still aren't really that weird.

 

So, I think the two worlds concept is pretty dumb. I don't know why it is so odd to have human beings in a world with these kind of zones residing alongside realistic cities like Station Square and Central City. Hell, even those places have stylizations like the overpasses and freeways also having inversions. It's just a Sonic staple to have very odd ground. 

 

This realistic human world and the more crazy "classic" zones are not really that different when you think about it. Considering how many other series have come up with much more crazy places and tried to call them Earth (or something very similar), this really isn't much of an offender. 

 

Even still, every place on the planet doesn't have to look similar,of course. Earth is a extremely diverse place where there are very very normal looking places (to us, at least) while there are extremely surreal places where odd things are occurring.

 

An example is the Zhangye Danxia in China with it's odd formations and striping colours. If the Earth can have places like this, while having averageville over there, then I don't see why Sonic can't. 

 

I don't understand why Sonic's planet can't be like that either. Just some places can look more normal (to us, at least) while others look more odd.

[Jango]

At this point, after 24 years, I rather play the game without looking too much into it. It's like that because it's like that. If Sonic Team says there's 2 worlds, so be it.

Sure is nice when there's a connection between games, making it feel like the characters acknowlege their world and past events. That happened well in the classics, mostly thanks to the game's manuals, since those games lack any dialogue.

Mythos like Angel Island were brough to Adventure 1, without loosing too much of it's original origin (except that you can reach it by train apparently xD).

Going to Adventure 2, things started to be forgotten, right from the very beggining when we see Knuckles guarding the ME in a desert... Unless that's Sandopolis, but it probably ain't.

Now into Heroes that things reeeeally started to de-rail. Knuckles no longer guards the ME, Shadow is alive. It's true that a few times the characters do mention events from Adventure 2, but they don't go further than that.

ShadowTH also refers moments from Adventure 2, but the rest is all over the place.

After that, nothing really connected anymore, unless you count Sonic referencing Secret Rings and Colors in Generations.

As a bonus, in Unleashed we can see the entire planet, and spin it around. There's no indication of any past locations there. And I know this probably doesn't count, but at least in SA2 map (level selection) we see that GREEN HILL is an island far from the "human" continent.

So to me, the only moment the series had a believable consistence was during the classics to Sonic Adventure 1.

The rest is rest, like I said, it's nice when games do these connections, but with Sonic, thanks to the constant shift of writers and perhaps even lazyness, it's hard to impossible to tell a true story continuity or build a solid world...

[Nepenthe]

There's a difference between standalone stories and contradictory ones, and that difference is whether or not the new information can't possibly be reconciled with previous knowledge. Knuckles not being shown to guard the ME in Heroes does not mean he stopped doing it so much as it means that Tails picked him up first. Not showing past locations in Unleashed doesn't mean they don't exist anymore so much as it means that they're not relevant to the game's story. Unless you're suggesting that every game have a cutscene where Knuckles is on Angel Island and is retrieved or leaves, or every game now needs to explicitly mention every single past location, it makes no sense whatsoever to determine that the lack of reiterating information into complete redundancy every new installment means we can't possibly say that the games don't take place in the same world (and honestly, you're forgetting Shadow's development which ties together every single game from SA2 to 06 as being in a linear continuity anyway.)

I don't see why the need to infer certain bits of information, or stories focusing on new locations to explore, suddenly means literally nothing matters. This constant defeatism just doesn't make sense to me because I don't see the underlying logic for it. If you don't see something you previously saw before in media that has sequels, like a character or location, do you honestly think it has no object permanence and just completely stops existing and/or that we're always jumping universes? What is the evidence for this other than the reliance of an "absence of evidence" angle (if it's not explained, it means everything is equally possible). I just seriously don't get it.

[Bowbowis]

Many of the zones are not that weird. Just about every zone in Sonic 1-3 & Knuckles really just looks like Earth except for some crazier features such as the ground having inversions and there being floating platforms and such. It's just very stylized which is perfectly okay. Even Sonic CD (which isn't even on Earth) zones still aren't really that weird.

[Nepenthe]

There's a lot on Lost Hex that doesn't make sense for being there. Like the sheep being there or the giant crocodile, or knowledge of owls, or cacti. Honestly, unless it was ever implied that it was a part of Earth or something once, them setting the game on another planet strikes me as a fairly irrational decision because it didn't serve to actually take advantage of the space aesthetics. Colors did a much better job in this regard.

[Tara]

There's a difference between standalone stories and contradictory ones, and that difference is whether or not the new information can't possibly be reconciled with previous knowledge. Knuckles not being shown to guard the ME in Heroes does not mean he stopped doing it so much as it means that Tails picked him up first. Not showing past locations in Unleashed doesn't mean they don't exist anymore so much as it means that they're not relevant to the game's story. Unless you're suggesting that every game have a cutscene where Knuckles is on Angel Island and is retrieved or leaves, or every game now needs to explicitly mention every single past location, it makes no sense whatsoever to determine that the lack of reiterating information into complete redundancy every new installment means we can't possibly say that the games don't take place in the same world (and honestly, you're forgetting Shadow's development which ties together every single game from SA2 to 06 as being in a linear continuity anyway.)

I don't see why the need to infer certain bits of information, or stories focusing on new locations to explore, suddenly means literally nothing matters. This constant defeatism just doesn't make sense to me because I don't see the underlying logic for it. If you don't see something you previously saw before in media that has sequels, like a character or location, do you honestly think it has no object permanence and just completely stops existing and/or that we're always jumping universes? What is the evidence for this other than the reliance of an "absence of evidence" angle (if it's not explained, it means everything is equally possible). I just seriously don't get it.

[ThePrinceOfSaiyans]

You know... Knuckles was able to hide the Master Emerald on his person in Sonic Adventure 2... I'm just gonna assume he has the Master Emerald on his person in every subsequent game. I'm also gonna assume the characters can put the emeralds in a pocket dimension and bring them out whenever they feel like it.

[Nepenthe]

Knuckles in Adventure 1 seemed to come across as a lot less resigned at the end of his journey, realizing he didn't even know why he was guarding it in the first place. That, and the old Japanese manuals makes it known that he does leave his post to better understand Angel Island, set traps in the first place, and make friends. I never got the feeling that he was stuck there all the time, or at the least had an inability to not want to do other things. I agree though that Sega didn't do a good job transitioning him from either mindset, but I feel the damage is lessened by the fact that the politics of the conflicts themselves don't care about the Master Emerald anymore, which in turn has also left Knuckles without narrative purpose even if he were to have remained steadfast in his duties anyway. At best, they could have just stopped using him so much.

[Tara]

I wasn't aware that the Japanese instruction manuals had mentioned that sort of thing.  Knuckles in SA1 sort of gave me the impression of neutrality and possessing a one-track mind when he showed clear disinterest in Sonic and Eggman's affairs until Eggman attempted to frame Sonic as detrimental to his goal, further exasperated by his clear willingness to put the space shuttle that the hero team takes in SA2 in jeopardy when the Master Emerald fragments are ejected from the cargo hatch, and even further strengthened by the fact that his Archie persona (while not inherently relevant to the games) also painted that picture for the first 50 issues or more. (Haven't read that far yet)  Conveyance wasn't really Sega's strongest feature in the late 90's and early 2000's to say the least, though, since a lot of information about the characters really is only attainable by reading their character bios, rather than seeing it on screen.

[Jango]

I get your point Nephe, and I agree. But I also stand mine. You said that just because X didn't got mention in Y afterwards, doesn't mean it stoped existing. It's true, but it doesn't have to go as far as creating a whole cutscene just for the matter. Hints. Signs. Could ST have added Angel Island to Unleashed's globe? Absolutely. Its inclusion should influence the story? No, just like SA2's Green Hill. But at the very least the player would be aware of its existence in the same world, the same Earth, as human's. The way things ended, it does looks like there are 2 different planets.

Sure a cutscene or a dialogue would be cool once in a while, but like I said it's not interely necessary. Sonic 2 connects with 3 through a cutscene. TBH that's the only time in the whole series that something like this happens, a direct connection. Beyond that it's all expeculation and things that happens for pure story convenience.

[Nepenthe]

Excusing the fact that its improbable that Angel Island could be seen from space, if it has no impact on the story, there would be no reason to include it. Green Hill is an easter egg exclusive to SA2 and is thus not comparable.

That also isn't the only direct connection in the franchise. Adventure references S2, S3&K, and CD. Adventure 2 references SA1 by mentioning Station Square. Heroes references SA2 through continuing Shadow's story and subsequently ShtH and 06 are in a linear timeline. The modern games get episodic and standalone, but this is literally not proof that the canon doesn't matter because a story being self-contained doesn't contradict prior knowledge.

So yeah, I still don't understand where people are getting the notion that anything and nothing makes sense unless you always refer back to locations that don't have anything to do with the proceedings. Again, it smacks of not adhering to simple object permanence or inferrence.

[Wittymations]

Going to Adventure 2, things started to be forgotten, right from the very beggining when we see Knuckles guarding the ME in a desert... Unless that's Sandopolis, but it probably ain't.