Mania Adventures and Encore Mode are separate universes (not surprised anymore)

[Marco9966]

Reddit:

Aaron Webber confirmed on stream that Mania Adventures and Encore Mode are separate universes. Essentially, he says it’s up to your own opinion which of the two is actually canon in the sonic universe.

I don't care about game continuity anymore.

The only way for people who want a coherent and established world is the IDW comics.

[Diogenes]

You realize IDW Sonic is just an alternate take on Modern Sonic, right?

[Marco9966]

7 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

You realize IDW Sonic is just an alternate take on Modern Sonic, right?

Yeah but I don't expect it to have a story that's supposed to be canon to it, but then takes place in yet another universe because the team is too lazy to correct story contradictions, and then the team just says "whatever fans, headcanon your way around it".

[Blue Wisp]

Wait.

wut.

Why would you do that.

Mania Adventures would've been a great prologue leading up to Encore Mode's story.

Mania's gameplay is fantastic but damn they dropped the ball hard with how they handled the story part of it. 3&K did it great. Sure at the end the story is pointless for a classic throwback game but if you ARE going to include a story in the first place then at least try to put some effort into it.

Otherwise just make it a gauntlet of stages and I'll be completely fine. Don't half-ass it.

 

[Ayliffe]

Have you considered that the social media person under NDA may not be actually allowed to talk honestly and openly about details from things that aren't properly released yet?

 

Like... the final episode isn't out yet. Actually watch the thing first before getting miffed about it.

[Diogenes]

10 minutes ago, Ayliffe said:

Have you considered that the social media person under NDA may not be actually allowed to talk honestly and openly about details from things that aren't properly released yet?

If that was the case he wouldn't have said anything.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

1 hour ago, Marco9966 said:

Aaron Webber confirmed on stream that Mania Adventures and Encore Mode are separate universes. Essentially, he says it’s up to your own opinion which of the two is actually canon in the sonic universe.

I don't care about game continuity anymore.

Not to tease or anything, but don't you think that's a bit of an overreaction to a social media PR rep stating that some DLC isn't connected to a mini series?

I mean, for all we know, they could still fit anyway, and he's just been told to say that for the time being to see how overall reception to Adventures is before actively declaring it canon or whatnot.

Either way, why throw a fit over the canon status of DLC or a tiny series of cartoons at this step of the game? Not like he said all of Mania's not canon or something.

[Kittea]

Even if this is true I'm ignoring it regardless. Mania Adventures fits right into the Mania > Forces plot line as basic as their connection is and I'm going to keep looking at this timeline as such. I'm not against the idea of different universes but this is getting silly. That being said veryone's free to interpret the story as they wish from this point ^^

[Salamander]

I never expected otherwise.  Encore Mode is just a bonus, Mania Adventures is just for promotion.  They're both nice additions, but expecting them to have a deep narrative relationship with one another always seemed unlikely given the present story-loose approach of the franchise and the way Mania itself could only ever have an excuse plot to line up a bunch of familiar levels.  In a way, the very existence of Mania itself is very much just a bonus, too.

The franchise as a whole has given up on canon, but the classics never leaned very hard on continuity and interrelation anyway.  I'd like a greater sense of continuity from the series, but I don't think this was ever the best place to look for it.

[Kazhnuz]

1 hour ago, Marco9966 said:

Reddit:

Aaron Webber confirmed on stream that Mania Adventures and Encore Mode are separate universes. Essentially, he says it’s up to your own opinion which of the two is actually canon in the sonic universe. 

I don't care about game continuity anymore.

The only way for people who want a coherent and established world is the IDW comics.

You are reading two much about "universes". It's exactly like having alternate version of a game (for instance Sonic 1 GG and Sonic 1, or Sonic Colors DS and Sonic Colors Wii). They are two separate takes on what can happen post- Sonic Forces.

Mania Adventure is just a small separate project, basically accepted by SEGA for com. TBH, the Sonic Mania encore mode can even be read like just a sequel to Sonic Mania without taking force into account.

[Marco9966]

10 minutes ago, FFWF said:

The franchise as a whole has given up on canon, but the classics never leaned very hard on continuity and interrelation anyway.  I'd like a greater sense of continuity from the series, but I don't think this was ever the best place to look for it.

They did.

Sonic 1 till 2006 was all about canon, every game was connected to the other through references, common characters, callbacks...

Examples:

-SA1: Amy remembers the events of Sonic CD, Knuckles is "tricked again", Japanese version has a kid mentioning the "Little Planet and Angel Island crises"

-SA2: TV says Tails saved Station Square.

-Heroes: Knuckles: "there's more mushrooms here than on Angel Island", Amy: "remember when we were at the Egg Carrier?"

-ShTH: The whole game developed and explored the events of a previous game (SA2).

That's just a few examples of how this franchise was well connected and made us care about the characters.

I just have one thing to say for the game continuity as of now: I'm very disappointed at Sonic Team.

[Kazhnuz]

A throw-away line to a past game isn't really "continuity". The only real connection are between games like S2-S3&K, SA2-Heroes-Shadow and SA2-Heroes-Battle-SAdv3… Most of the time it's small reference that feel sometimes a bit more forced than anything.

Basically, the Sonic games care about canon when that suit them. When it doesn't suit them, well… Battle and Shadow the Hedgehog have two separate takes on working on Shadow character post-Heroes (they are a bit compatible, but they are still separate takes, Sonic Battle taking into account the whole "Shadow is a weapon" storyline with the use of Emerl, while Shadow the Hedgehog use a totally different way to make evolve Shadow). Sonic Adventure changed radically the Echidna Ruins style. And let's not mention too much of Sonic 2006 basically adding a stable time loop paradox to the Blue Chaos Emerald (which is a pretty big contradiction with past games, that could have been avoided just by adding the mystery of having two blue chaos emerald :V)

For Sonic, continuity is a tool that sometimes they use. When the feel like too.

[Darth InVaders]

I don't take Aaron Webber as a highly reliable source for canon cause he is only Sega of America's social media coordinator, not a member of Sonic Team - he is a great source for just about everything else.

Takashi Iizuka is a great source for canon, that is when he is not speaking in riddles like calling the Sonic Heroes mysterious villain a "brand-new villian, very similar to Metal Sonic. We have the original designer here on campus who is updating the character..." only to turn out to be Metal Sonic in a new form. So the only time when Iizuka is a difficult source is when he is hard to understand. I also believe this applies to his comments about there being a human world and animal world with some "crossover" - I think he is only talking about there being different regions on Sonic's planet that are essentially their own worlds (unless Iizuka says something more clear that there are 2 planets or 2 dimensions like Sonic X).

[Marco9966]

5 minutes ago, Darth InVaders said:

I don't take Aaron Webber as a highly reliable source for canon cause he is only Sega of America's social media coordinator, not a member of Sonic Team - he is a great source for just about everything else.

Takashi Iizuka is a great source for canon, that is when he is not speaking in riddles like calling the Sonic Heroes mysterious villain a "brand-new villian, very similar to Metal Sonic. We have the original designer here on campus who is updating the character..." only to turn out to be Metal Sonic in a new form. So the only time when Iizuka is a difficult source is when he is hard to understand. I also believe this applies to his comments about there being a human world and animal world with some "crossover" - I think he is only talking about there being different regions on Sonic's planet that are essentially their own worlds (unless Iizuka says something more clear that there are 2 planets or 2 dimensions like Sonic X).

Well his mysterious claims misleads the comics team who take his word literally and want to apply the two-world/two-planets policy in the IDW comics.

[Badnik Mechanic]

16 minutes ago, Darth InVaders said:

I don't take Aaron Webber as a highly reliable source for canon cause he is only Sega of America's social media coordinator, not a member of Sonic Team - 

Who has access to and reads the latest Sonic bibles and sits in on those meetings with Sonic Team.

What do you think Aaron's job involves exactly?

Anyway regardless... is the statement in the OP really that much of an issue?

[Kazhnuz]

1 hour ago, Marco9966 said:

Well his mysterious claims misleads the comics team who take his word literally and want to apply the two-world/two-planets policy in the IDW comics.

And as the comic-book is it's own continuity, they can change the world of the games and some plot point how they want to makes everything fits. Iizuka hasn't to change his way of talking just to not have the comic-book team "misleaded" (and tbh, SEGA monitor at least a bit the comic-book, so they at least don't have a problem with the two-world being a thing in it). And the comic-book is a separate universe with it's own - even if game-inspired - story, not a refuge for frustrated fans from the game series . So they don't really have to answer to these frustrations, so I'm not sure that what the comic-book do or would do is an important consideration.

 

( I'm not saying that it's a problem to get in the comic-book things that we don't get anymore in the game (like the writing of some character, etc), or that fans of the games aren't welcome : Just that the comic-book isn't a "fix-fic" of the game continuity, and that for me it shouldn't be thought that way. )

[Rusty Spy]

No it's not an alternate universe Webber. So sorry. You can't just excuse every little inconsistency as an alternate universe, or just because you feel like it. Canonicity is not a multiple choice question. You just have bad writers. It's seriously getting on my nerves how much Sonic Team seems to care about "explaining" canon inconsistency (or what they've deluded themselves into thinking is inconsistency), while not actually writing consistently in the first place.

Classic Sonic in Forces is Classic Sonic in Mania is Classic Sonic in Generations is the same universe as modern Sonic, end of fucking story.

[Multikaris]

I will wait for the Forces DLC to decide. Though I bet neither are canon.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

17 minutes ago, Rusty Spy said:

Classic Sonic in Forces is Classic Sonic in Mania is Classic Sonic in Generations is the same universe as modern Sonic

Well that's one thing we can agree on.

[Wraith]

It's not that big of a deal. He's basically saying whichever one you like the most you can slot in as to what happened. Fans...do that type of stuff, anyway. 

It's also not uncommon for adaptations like Mania Adventures to be treated as a separate entity. Sonic X wasn't canon to the dreamcast games. IDW isn't canon to the modern games etc.

[SaturnWolf]

Does it really matter? Sonic games barely have any continuity at all anymore anyways, so it's not like a few promotional shorts and some DLC not being connected is the worst, most inconsistent thing this franchise has ever done storywise. 

[Razule]

6 hours ago, Ayliffe said:

Have you considered that the social media person under NDA may not be actually allowed to talk honestly and openly about details from things that aren't properly released yet?

 

Like... the final episode isn't out yet. Actually watch the thing first before getting miffed about it.

Outright lying is bad PR though. This is a straight answer. If he couldn't say anything, he just wouldn't say anything.

[superman43]

21 minutes ago, Razule said:

Outright lying is bad PR though. This is a straight answer. If he couldn't say anything, he just wouldn't say anything.

Because no one would take "No comment" as a confirmation of... something...

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

8 hours ago, Marco9966 said:

I don't care about game continuity anymore.

The only way for people who want a coherent and established world is the IDW comics.

I like you Marco, I do. And I have to say...... you've finally, finally, fiiiiiiinally caught on to what SEGA has been trying to tell you for many many years. They don't give a crap about continuity and canon within the Sonic series. The Sonic series has not cared much about it since the beginning. They just want to make games and merchandise that are popular to as many people that find them appealing for any reason at all(and a long time ago, games that were great to play). Fans of the Modern Sonic era like yourself and many others just do not, or simply refuse to come to terms with this and constantly beg for a heavy dose of these things. To you, story is as least as important to Sonic as anything other design element, even in the games. However between every game release (especially in the Modern Sonic era) there are wild, sweeping changes that make no sense in the context of what came before or after. Because *surprise* they weren't thought through all that carefully to begin with! And yet you still ask.   

I really, seriously, do feel your pain. When I was a much younger fan of this series I was the same way for a little while...but I figured out somewhere along the way that SEGA does not care about story and continuity with this franchise. I remember wondering if the S3&K emerald lore was the one I should follow, or the archie comics. Eventually I realized it didn't matter, and I just picked the games as the one that mattered (and since I read lots of books, there was no shortage of good stories to read and invest into). And then had fun anyway because the games were awesome at the time.

There are other franchises that do care about these things. So for story and characters, I pay more attention to those ones and just take what the Sonic series is willing to dish out, if the gameplay is fun. If you really want consistency, scream and beg to Sonic Team and are still not getting it, then for your own sake go find another franchise to get that from. I say that with all respect and understanding, and am not trying to undermine you in anyway. I think a lot of fans who joined later in the series history just flat out don't seem to understand this. For them character driven stories are arguably the biggest reason they got into this series and they happened to love the one they started with. But because of their nostalgia for that specific time in Sonic History, they won't accept that SEGA/Sonic Team does not at all prioritize what they really want.

If a neutral observer even halfway examines the history of this franchise, its painfully obvious that SEGA and Sonic Team has never given anything above the absolute minimum amount of concern about the Sonic lore they create between entries. They will throw any idea at the wall story wise to get a game or product out and if it works, it works. This is not even a matter of like, "Oh they need to go back to the time when we had a consistent output of carefully written, story driven games". No dude, there was literally NEVER, EVER a time when that was true for Sonic. You may love Sonic (we all do) but to be honest, that's not the kind of franchise you should be looking to get your fix from. You really are wasting your own time. Sad to say but its true. Doesn't mean you shouldn't still like Sonic. Just alter your expectations to enjoy the series' story in a more casual way (just my advice) and you'll be much happier.

[Marco9966]

8 minutes ago, UpCDownCLeftCRightC said:

for your own sake go find another franchise to get that from. I say that with all respect and understanding, and am not trying to undermine you in anyway.

I know, the only thing keeping me in anyways is the IDW comics, at least they acknowledge past events there.