Classic and Modern - More than just a Stylistic Choice

[Nepenthe]

Shadow The Hedgehog and Lost World both are obviously 3D Sonic games. I wouldn't believe anyone- unless they had absolutely no prior experience with the entire medium of video gaming- if they said that ShtH and Lost World weren't part of the same line of some sort. That's the assumptive line of thought, because video games tend to experiment with art style regardless of canon.

Now you can have a discussion about whether or not something is a spin-off (which doesn't automatically mean the stories contained therein aren't canon, either) or whether or not specific plot elements cause actual continuity problems, but I'm saying: rational adults who have grown up with gaming actively thinking ShtH isn't a Sonic-Team endorsed Sonic game because it's not as colorful as LW aren't a thing. You might as well point to Sonic 1's box art and Sonic Adventure's box art and try to make the argument that the automatic assumption there is that they aren't part of the same line of games either.

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

They aren't really in the same continuity though, Shadow's game while referencing some others felt more like a side game to me than a main series game. 

[Nepenthe]

It doesn't matter what the game "feels like." It's a Sonic Team-developed platformer built on top of Heroes' architecture that wraps up Shadow's identity crisis from Heroes while adding context to the whole ARK backstory introduced in SA2. It is impossible to say it's in a completely different continuity.

[Osmium]

4 minutes ago, Lady Knuxchao said:

They aren't really in the same continuity though, Shadow's game while referencing some others felt more like a side game to me than a main series game. 

side game =/= being in completely different continuities unless explicitly stated or heavily implied. 

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

However, the game was pretty much forgotten and never really referenced again. Yes they have the same gameplay styles etc, however aside from Shadow's past, nothing else about the game was continuous nor was it really canon. So I really do not believe this game is part of the same continuity, especially when it's marketing tried so hard to separate itself from the rest of the series. I can say the same about 06 as well. However 06 is in Generations so.... Shadow doesn't have that going for it.

[Wraith]

The way I see it, Mario, Zelda and Sonic pretty much all had a similar identity crisis. Mario and Zelda's games were still solid so they didn't catch nearly as much hell form it, but it was there. 

They all had to design their first step into 3D differently than they normally would due to technological limitations. Hence the birth of the mission based Mario, themuch more linear, more atmospheric Zelda, and the genre roulette Sonic. People liked these games, so of course they got followups, making for a long line of games that aren't really like the originals but have their own fans. Like, I know most people love Mario Galaxy and Sunshine, but have you ever thought about just how far removed from the original Mario games they are at the core? It's fucking weird. Same with Zelda. the entire 3D line thus far is a pretty weird deviation that doesnt even make up most of the series even if they're good at what they do.  It also comes with it's own set of problems. "Classic" Zelda fans are not getting any games with a higher budget or some of the more talented people in the series's staff working on them, but lower budget handheld stuff. "Modern" Zelda fans are getting a game every 60 years and are getting largely ignored beyond those, so if the newest one turns out to be a bit of a misfire, have fun with the waiting game. I'd argue that Zelda kind of stagnated for a while because of the split.

Sonic's followups were increasingly unstable and weird, so of course he caught more shit for it, but the basic problem is the same.  

But now we have Mario 3D World and now Breath of the Wild, which kind of try to bring the two styles together. Make something fans from all over the series can enjoy while staying true to the core and even trying to push it forward. It was basically the next step in the series's evolution. 

That's what I wanted from Sonic, and the new Sonic games are pretty distinctly not that. That's kind of worrying. Not enough to kill my excitement for the games, but still.

[FriendBot]

I get that Shadow doesn't really feel like it should be a game that's canon to the main series since it markets itself as you choose Shadow's destiny to become a villain, hero or anything in between. But despite that, it feature a Last Story that canonically concludes Shadow's truth about his past, it contradicts what the game was marketed but it exists. Therefore, the Final Story of Shadow is canon to the main series and that playing through the majority of the game doesn't even matter.....

Holy shit, Shadow was a fucking mess.

[Sean]

39 minutes ago, Lady Knuxchao said:

However, the game was pretty much forgotten and never really referenced again. Yes they have the same gameplay styles etc, however aside from Shadow's past, nothing else about the game was continuous nor was it really canon. So I really do not believe this game is part of the same continuity, especially when it's marketing tried so hard to separate itself from the rest of the series. I can say the same about 06 as well. However 06 is in Generations so.... Shadow doesn't have that going for it.

Your argument doesn't have any basis in series logic or even how the series operates. Not once has Sega ever gone on record to state that the game is non-canon, even if they have yet to find reason to reference it as of late. If you say that Shadow the Hedgehog was non-canon, then you'll need to show evidence of that.

[ChikoLad]

1 hour ago, Sean said:

To anybody saying that the Sonic series should be segmented into entirely separate canons/subfranchises: no other franchise actually does this shit. Mario doesn't do it; Rayman doesn't do it; not even Zelda does this. Mega Man is a fucking piss-poor example. All of the Mega Man entities are literally different characters the same way Link in The Legend of Zelda is a different character almost every time. Meanwhile, classic and modern Sonic are still the same fucking Sonic, and there's nothing about either set of games that tells me that yes, this set of games takes place in an entirely different timeline or even a different time period. Surreal/realistic environments? Who cares about that contrast when we have realistic games like 2006 and Unleashed that are still littered with loop-de-loops, twisting highways, and other impossible geometries that wouldn't exist in real life anyway? Every game has a different fucking art style the same way all of the Rayman games have different art styles, or how there are some Mario games with surreal environments or realistic environments, and yet you don't see people trying to argue that Rayman or Mario games have separate continuities to explain these discrepancies. If you can convince me that Super Mario 64, Sunshine and Galaxy take place in a different continuity from the NES/SNES games/NSMB/3D Land/World them I'm all ears!

No other video game series does what you are asking Sega to do to Sonic. Not a single damn one.

First off, Paper Mario has literally been confirmed to be in a different continuity. Straight up confirmed it in Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, no ifs, ands, or buts.

Miyamoto also personally views the Mario characters as more akin to Popeye characters, where there is no canon, they're just using the different characters in different games, like episodes of a Looney Tunes cartoon or something. SMB3 is also literally a stage show, so it really can't be viewed as "canon" as such, as it's just a play. And SMB2 was literally a dream in Mario's head so once again, really not "canon" or consequential to anything. Miyamoto considers Mario a "blue collar" and just thinks they should do whatever with him, rather than bind him to an expansive continuity. While there are bits and pieces of Mario that obviously connect (the two Mario Galaxy games, the early Mario VS Donkey saga, etc)

In any case, I literally never said I wanted them to split the continuity of Modern and Classic Sonic. I don't know where you're getting this idea from. I said I would simply be OK with it either way (if they kept them as the same continuity, or split them). The general point here, and question proposed in the OP, is this idea of Classic Sonic being it's own sub-series now. Classic Sonic has his own identity now. Different character design, slightly different portrayal of the character, different gameplay, and different world. Though still the same character, just at an earlier point in his life. They could keep it that way, or they could decide to make Classic Sonic a different character like Boom Sonic. I was just saying that which option they take wouldn't bother me either way and wouldn't hurt the brand inherently. The Sonic mythos are too much of an incoherent clusterfuck for it to matter to me either way, and I mostly just view each game as it's own thing unless it's explicitly stated as a sequel or there is an obvious connection between two games (like Colours and Generations).

However, people still seem to say this split in the brand is inherently bad, regardless of if they keep the canon the same. I don't get that, because so many other major franchises do the same thing. The fact that Mega Man does so in a way that mostly keeps them in the same canon (though not in all cases - Battle Network and Star Force are a different universe to everything else, and I THINK ZX is too though I'm not certain on that one) is irrelevant. Would Mega Man X have been any less popular if he wasn't explained as being a different model 100 years in the future? I don't think so, as most consumers are not aware of this fact. All that matters is that Classic Mega Man is more lighthearted and focused on slower platforming, while Mega Man X is more serious and is focused on more fast paced action, and also has Zero's swordplay in later games. They are two distinctly different branches of the brand with a different feel and flavour, that draws in more consumers than if they stuck with the more "babyish" Classic Mega Man and nothing else. The same applies to Sonic, the way the branches existence is explained is completely irrelevant. Like with my Batman example, where all of the different branches of Batman are their own continuity most of the time.

I just don't get the problem here. As far as we know, the canon has been untouched, so you guys who want it to be the same should still be satisfied there. And as long as both the Classic and Modern games are good, they can both co-exist without having to overshadow the other. If anything, stuff like Classic and Boom would be used to fill the gap between the big Modern games, and that seems to be what's going on. So I do not see the problem, especially when it's different teams handling each branch of the franchise.

[Zaysho]

1 minute ago, Lady Knuxchao said:

However, the game was pretty much forgotten and never really referenced again. Yes they have the same gameplay styles etc, however aside from Shadow's past, nothing else about the game was continuous nor was it really canon. So I really do not believe this game is part of the same continuity, especially when it's marketing tried so hard to separate itself from the rest of the series. I can say the same about 06 as well. However 06 is in Generations so.... Shadow doesn't have that going for it.

How is Shadow not canon? It picks up where the last game (Heroes) left off, it builds off of Shadow's past which was introduced in Sonic Adventure 2. Being a side story that focused on Shadow doesn't mean it's part of a separate timeline. I can't help but feel you're disregarding Shadow simply because Sonic wasn't the star.

[ChikoLad]

2 minutes ago, Zaysho said:

How is Shadow not canon? It picks up where the last game (Heroes) left off, it builds off of Shadow's past which was introduced in Sonic Adventure 2. Being a side story that focused on Shadow doesn't mean it's part of a separate timeline. I can't help but feel you're disregarding Shadow simply because Sonic wasn't the star.

It's canon to games that came before it, and it's related to '06 (though that game was retconned).

But it can't be canon to Unleashed, for example, because it fundamentally contradicts that game with the layout of it's Earth mimicking the real world, while in Unleashed, the layout of Earth is suddenly COMPLETELY different.

This is what I mean by Sonic canon being an "incoherent clusterfuck" as is, to the point it doesn't matter if Classic ended up being it's own thing. The average consumer does not care. And most fans don't care because they realise most of these games weren't intended to link up and they often contradict each other on a fundamental level.

[Tori Himemiya]

17 minutes ago, Lady Knuxchao said:

However, the game was pretty much forgotten and never really referenced again. Yes they have the same gameplay styles etc, however aside from Shadow's past, nothing else about the game was continuous nor was it really canon. So I really do not believe this game is part of the same continuity, especially when it's marketing tried so hard to separate itself from the rest of the series. I can say the same about 06 as well. However 06 is in Generations so.... Shadow doesn't have that going for it.

I know this has been quoted a lot but I do wanna point out a couple of things of Shadow's game.

It hasn't been stated as non-canon but the whole point of the game is to have Shadow fix his ties to the past which he does so exactly. He comes to terms with Maria's passing at the end of the game and ever since he's always looked towards the future and never looks back.

Shadow would had been a different character in 06 if Shadow didn't happen. Its clear that he did make everything up in the past and is ready to move on and create a different future for himself as evidenced by his ending in again 06. Yeah they don't reference it but there's subtle ways of it appearing in Shadow's character.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

If you want to go further, since Generations practically threw 06 back into the canon, despite being non-canon by the end of the game, and on top of that, all of the other games that show Shadow as a agent of G.U.N, Shadow is the only game that provides an explanation as to why, after Shadow proved himself a hero by saving the world in Shadow, and decided he was putting his past behind him, he decided to join up with G.U.N after proving that he wasn't a threat to the G.U.N commander. 

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

11 minutes ago, Zaysho said:

How is Shadow not canon? It picks up where the last game (Heroes) left off, it builds off of Shadow's past which was introduced in Sonic Adventure 2. Being a side story that focused on Shadow doesn't mean it's part of a separate timeline. I can't help but feel you're disregarding Shadow simply because Sonic wasn't the star.

Nope, I'm done with the whole Sonic should be the star of everything phase. That would be idiotic for me to disregard Shadow's game because Sonic isn't it it, especially since I saw Knuxkles' Chaotix and Tails' games as being canon.

Based on what I am seeing, I am totally wrong about Shadow' game, so I apologise.

[VO.SUPER]

Honestly, this whole affair to seems to me to be SEGA's fault for seemingly distancing themselves from the classic series for so many years outside of the occasional throwbacks. You'd have Sonic team outright refuse to use Sonic's classic style, while 3D Sonic just kept pushing it's own identity that eventually bled into the 2D games to the point that this distinction became more prominent. Sonic Generations didn't help things much by having both Sonics be just so different from each other. Sure, Classic Sonic seems younger, but SEGA kept taking it further and further by having him be so "purely 2D" and not talking as if he was really just some alternate entity than a younger Sonic. 

I don't think they should have done that, but at the end of the day, it is what it is now. Both Classic and Modern are becoming so divided to the point that there's really no stopping it now. 

[Celestia]

16 minutes ago, ChikoLad said:

But it can't be canon to Unleashed, for example, because it fundamentally contradicts that game with the layout of it's Earth mimicking the real world, while in Unleashed, the layout of Earth is suddenly COMPLETELY different.

Or they just felt like redesigning it? The map we see briefly in ShTH was made before they decided to make an entire game about travelling the whole world, at which point they decided to put more thought into how the continents look. It's really not that complicated.

[ChikoLad]

6 minutes ago, Celestia said:

Or they just felt like redesigning it? The map we see briefly in ShTH was made before they decided to make an entire game about travelling the whole world, at which point they decided to put more thought into how the continents look. It's really not that complicated.

It kind of is, because Westopolis was shown to have a specific location on that map. If you assume Shadow is canon to Unleashed, there is no reason why the world should be completely different all of a sudden, especially since that would mean Westopolis would suddenly be in a different location in relation to everything else.

That's one of the things that makes me opt to view Sonic games as their own thing unless they have explicit ties to each other.

[Sean]

So is SA2 of a separate canon because of its world map? Or Sonic Advance 2's? Or Adventure just because there aren't any signs of Icecap being near Carnival Night? How about literally every Mario game where Peach's castle is in a different location and has different surroundings from what we see in Super Mario 64?

World geography changes in games, and not just Sonic ones, depending on what the developers feel like doing, and not because they're making a conscious effort to state that these are indeed different worlds than what we've seen in past games.

[ChikoLad]

2 minutes ago, Sean said:

So is SA2 of a separate canon because of its world map? Or Sonic Advance 2's? Or Adventure just because there aren't any signs of Icecap being near Carnival Night? How about literally every Mario game where Peach's castle is in a different location and has different surroundings from what we see in Super Mario 64?

World geography changes in games, and not just Sonic ones, depending on what the developers feel like doing, and not because they're making a conscious effort to state that these are indeed different worlds than what we've seen in past games.

Yeah, world geography matters in games with an emphasis on lore and canon, and world geography doesn't matter in games with little regard to canon in the first place.

Sonic fits the latter. Which is why I don't see an issue with it if SEGA suddenly came out and said "Classic Sonic is a separate universe", or even said something like "Classic Sonic is Modern Sonic's little bro". It changes virtually nothing for myself and the majority of people who might pick up a Sonic game. All I care about is that the game is fun to play, Sonic's general character and spirit remains intact regardless of the version of Sonic featured, and if it has much story to it, then said story is strong enough to stand on it's own and have a satisfying conclusion and doesn't need to be linked to other games, like Unleashed.

The difference between something like Sonic and Mario is that, while Mario doesn't focus on or care for canon all that much, rarely do Mario games actively contradict each other. Sonic on the other hand, while still having little focus on over-arching lore, actively contradicts itself all of the time to present new worlds.

Also, for the record, Peach's Castle has been yanked out of the ground more than once, so it's actually completely feasible that it might change location or that it's residents would have to move to a new location because their old town got destroyed.

[Sean]

The headcanoning you're doing to justify the way the Mario series does things is precisely the same amount you're using to justify that several Sonic games take place in different continuities. Both sets of developers put the exact same level of thought in discrepancies between titles, which is to say, extremely little.

[Dejimon11]

8 minutes ago, Sean said:

So is SA2 of a separate canon because of its world map? Or Sonic Advance 2's? Or Adventure just because there aren't any signs of Icecap being near Carnival Night? How about literally every Mario game where Peach's castle is in a different location and has different surroundings from what we see in Super Mario 64?

World geography changes in games, and not just Sonic ones, depending on what the developers feel like doing, and not because they're making a conscious effort to state that these are indeed different worlds than what we've seen in past games.

Yeah pretty much. I guess not every NSMB game matters because the geography especially the world map changes in every single game.

[Nepenthe]

Sonic's physical proportions changed drastically between Adventure 1 and Adventure 2. He literally doesn't look the same between games. Hell, in Sonic Adventure 2, he actually has separate fingers. Therefore, we can't even say that Sonic Adventure 2 is a direct sequel to Sonic Adventure 1.

[Sean]

Angel Island looks different in Sonic 3 than it does in Sonic Adventure. Definitely different canons.

[Dejimon11]

2 minutes ago, Sean said:

Angel Island looks different in Sonic 3 than it does in Sonic Adventure. Definitely different canons.

Sky Sanctuary isn't yellow in Generations like how it was in S3&K they're completely different continuities.

[Dr. Mechano]

I don't see why them sharing a universe is even up for debate, considering Generations clearly establishes that the classic games and the modern games take place in the same timeline.