Theorizing about the Sonic's two world controversy [Games' lore discussion]

[Dr. Mechano]

9 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Neither of these things have anything to do with those games' stories. SA isn't about the population statistics of Station Square, it's about Sonic stopping Eggman's latest evil scheme, it's about Tails gaining some self confidence, it's about Gamma rebelling to "save" his brothers, it's about Chaos mourning his fellow chao and taking his pain out on the world, and so on. Stopping to explain that Sonic and everyone else jumped into a wormhole and ended up on a different planet would've just been clutter.

Arguably, the planet is relevant for Chaos's story.

If a bunch of "Sonic's World" echidnas attacked the Chao years ago, why's he taking his anger out on a bunch of unrelated humans from a completely different planet? Like, I guess we could just say Chaos is so blinded by rage that any target will do (which, fair enough; even if it was the same planet, the people of Station Square have nothing to do with Pachacamac's tribe).

Still, the game isn't exactly subtle about how the Mystic Ruins used to be echidna territory, with the entrance to Lost World appearing as part of the echidna city in the flashback segments. This section of the Mystic Ruins that didn't get whisked up into the sky as part of Angel Island.

If two worlds is still a thing, this means that the echidnas - and even Angel Island itself - are from  the "human world" originally, yeah?

[Diogenes]

8 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

Arguably, the planet is relevant for Chaos's story.

If a bunch of "Sonic's World" echidnas attacked the Chao years ago, why's he taking his anger out on a bunch of unrelated humans from a completely different planet? Like, I guess we could just say Chaos is so blinded by rage that any target will do (which, fair enough; even if it was the same planet, the people of Station Square have nothing to do with Pachacamac's tribe).

Well...yeah, that last bit. Chaos isn't taking well-considered revenge, he's lashing out wildly. The people responsible for killing the chao are all long dead, the immediate perpetrators likely wiped out in his initial rampage. But he's still hurting, and destroying is the only way he knows how to deal with it, doesn't matter who or what. Same story, regardless of which or how many worlds.

8 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

Still, the game isn't exactly subtle about how the Mystic Ruins used to be echidna territory, with the entrance to Lost World appearing as part of the echidna city in the flashback segments. This section of the Mystic Ruins that didn't get whisked up into the sky as part of Angel Island.

If two worlds is still a thing, this means that the echidnas - and even Angel Island itself - are from  the "human world" originally, yeah?

Angel Island, yeah, that's likely a chunk of the human world. The echidnas themselves presumably could be traced back to the animal world if you went back far enough. The exact circumstances of them ending up in the human world, we have no way of knowing.

[User18091994]

2 hours ago, Dr. Mechano said:

"Two worlds" just doesn't mesh with the established series prior to that idea.

Throughout the classic games, we've seen evidence of other humans besides Eggman. Human hieroglyphs and statues in various zones, Witchcart, etc.

In the modern games, we've seen traditional "Sonic's world"-type levels on the same planet as humans and human activity. Sonic Rush has wacky zones you'd expect to see in a classic-era game, but also has a GUN base. Sonic Battle has Emerald Town - with its checkered ground and cliffsides (where Tails lives, no less) - right next to the human-populated Central City, which later appeared in Shadow the Hedgehog. And of course, the ancient echidna architecture all over the Mystic Ruins - including parts of it that aren't the fallen Angel Island.

The worlds were always presented as one in the same until around 2010. Now, if you're fine with them just instituting a retcon and accepting the previous inconsistencies as simply no longer canon or otherwise ignorable, that's fine. But I find that to be a really unsatisfying direction for the series to go. The old games were clearly written with a single planet in mind, and this change makes a ton of stuff from those games not make any sense anymore.

Exactly, another example is Pumpkin Hill on Sonic Adventure 2. It's very clear that the most of the games were developed with only one world in mind. 

I'm fine them using this retcon if they provide a good explanation for these inconsistencies so the lore could make sense again. I'm fine with both one or two worlds, I just want the lore of the series to make sense.

2 hours ago, Diogenes said:

Neither of these things have anything to do with those games' stories. SA isn't about the population statistics of Station Square, it's about Sonic stopping Eggman's latest evil scheme, it's about Tails gaining some self confidence, it's about Gamma rebelling to "save" his brothers, it's about Chaos mourning his fellow chao and taking his pain out on the world, and so on. Stopping to explain that Sonic and everyone else jumped into a wormhole and ended up on a different planet would've just been clutter.

World building and continuity are also aspects of the stories. It's not because you don't care about them that they aren't relevant. They aren't relevant for you. The Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 stories were adapted on Sonic X with the two worlds concept and a few other changes and they are much better on the TV show because of that. 

2 hours ago, Diogenes said:

And a lot of those other things don't matter either. The moon is absolutely not relevant to Heroes or ShtH, all events would proceed exactly the same if they had showed it broken. All that showing it broken would have achieved is pleasing a small number of detail-obsessed fans and confusing anyone who hadn't played SA2. 

It doesn't matter if the events of the games are the same. Eggman breaking the moon was a huge event of Sonic Adventure 2 and both games happens right after that. It's a consequence of SA2 events that should be in the background of those games. How exactly having the moon broken on Heroes and Shadow TH would confuse people? It doesn't make any sense

2 hours ago, Diogenes said:

You can work yourself up over it being "an issue" but it's not going to change that Sonic Team simply doesn't care, that they will likely never provide you with an explanation, satisfying or otherwise.

You can ignore and make up bad excuses, but it's still a inconsistency in the games continuity. It's not because Sonic Team doesn't care that it's not a inconsistency. Come up with a better argument than this.

 

[Kazhnuz]

7 hours ago, Raphael Martins said:

1 - They never said anything about the maps not being canon. This your head canon and you cannot claim this is true without a official confirmation

2, 3 and 5 - Yes, could be explained by the two worlds, but it needs to be better clarified and exposed

4 - Again, there's no confirmation about that, and Green Hill and other supposed locations from Sonic's world also appeared on Earth in other games like the Advanced series, Sonic Battle, etc. It's very clear that most of this games weren't developed with the two worlds concepts in mind. This isn't something that couldn't be fixed, but they are inconsistencies

6 - A magical world or a fictional universe still needs to be consistent and have coherent rules about how things work in this fictional reality.

1 - Well, Flynn works on the encyclopedia, and said something like there will never be a canon map of the Sonic world on a recent bumblekast. In the same where he said that we shouldn't worry about two world with a "satisfied smile". So it's pretty sure info for me, as it comes from the person that currently work on the biggest source we will have xD. (and a headcanon is about stuff inside the story, not about how they work their story)

2, 3 and 5 - Well… With what we've got as info for 1, we can think there won't be.

4 - Flynn see Battle and Advance as Animal World, so on that one I follow his vision. And even GHZ in Battle is IIRC only in bonus maps. TBH I can understand why you see Battle as HW, but Advance ? They're basically the Classic with Green Eyes and not-as-good-gameplay. Central City is for me a better exemple. There will be inconsistencies. Like that we have consistencies without it. It's a "choose your poison"-type of situation.

6 - Well, on that point, it needs SOME consistency, but tbh it really depends of what you do with it. Sonic have a kinda loose canon, which is pretty common in some long-term IP (see Doctor Who, or some other japanese canon like Gundam). Canon sometimes mean "official" more than a biblical canon, as our vision of canon basically comes from angry Sherlock Holmes fan IIRC (and from religion, as the world, well… is a religious one). Sonic is a loooong running IP, where each game can be made by different people, that won't always want to follow the established rules to more give their vision of Sonic. It's difficult to really have a strong canon with that, so loose canon will certainly be more what we'll get. And a looot of headcanon xD

  

45 minutes ago, Raphael Martins said:

It doesn't matter if the events of the games are the same. Eggman breaking the moon was a huge event of Sonic Adventure 2 and both games happens right after that. It's a consequence of SA2 events that should be in the background of those games. How exactly having the moon broken on Heroes and Shadow TH would confuse people? It doesn't make any sense

This one is kinda interesting as it's the issues when we write that kind of long term series.

Basically, Heroes and Shadow where available on GC (where SA2 was also available) and PS2/XB where it wasn't. Not to mention that Heroes was released 2 years after and Shadow 4 years after. If you look at both game, they re-introduce much of what we need to understand the story. In Heroes Shadow's not being dead is the start of the story, and in Shadow, most info we need about SA2 were reintroduced even though it's a direct sequel. They do that because each Sonic games have to be a starting point for new player. Each and every game can have people that play it without having ever played another Sonic game. And this change a lot what your option are.

So why not the moon ? Because it would need reintroducing some info for just a background details that would give their artist more work. Even just some years after, it wasn't really worth it for the Sonic Team. It's a choice they made. It's the kind of things that's not really usefull if you aren't actively using it (either to remind people of Shadow's faults or how far Eggman can go… even if he kinda went farther in more recent game). So TBH, it's for me a logical choice. Remember that we are the big fans who know obscure useless things. People that engage in online discussion about a videogame are less than 5% of the whole playerbase. Our needs and what we want are not the needs of the whole playerbase. So sometimes, it's better to not keep an small established details to streamline the future games.

[Indigo Rush]

I think the idea of Angel Island being on either planet isn't terribly difficult to reconcile; it's a bit of an unsatisfying hand-wavey dismissal sort of explanation, but I would write it off as Angel Island existing in its own interdimensional flux between both worlds.

See, considering that it's the home of the Master Emerald (the properties of which weren't explained beyond powerful rock that controls the Chaos Emeralds in some fashion) and is so imbued with that energy that the entire landmass is floating extremely high in the air, I think it's an easy way out. 

Honestly, same goes for any of the other islands that Sonic explores during the classic era. It's not a well-known piece of lore, but South Island isn't actually on any map, because it moves around on the ocean. Islands don't do that: this is because of the power of the Chaos Emeralds, according to the Japanese story manual. I think any island or landmass that's had long-term exposure to chaos energy could reasonably be found in that sort of interdimensional flux; giving a potentially sufficient explanation for South Island (or at least the Green Hill portion) being in the human world in SA2.

[spoilers] The actual answer is that they didn't think this through in the beginning and Sega/Sonic Team doesn't actually intend to fix any of this, so Sonic canon is currently a nigh irredeemable mess, so best not to think too terribly hard about it, though this is fun sometimes.[/spoilers]

[Mauro Fonseca]

On 8/30/2021 at 4:14 AM, Diogenes said:

No it wouldn't. They always just create whatever new places they feel like. If they don't want humans, create places without humans.

They did. An entire planet without them, even. Back in 1998, even.

11 hours ago, Dr. Mechano said:

"Two worlds" just doesn't mesh with the established series prior to that idea.

Throughout the classic games, we've seen evidence of other humans besides Eggman. Human hieroglyphs and statues in various zones, Witchcart, etc.

In the modern games, we've seen traditional "Sonic's world"-type levels on the same planet as humans and human activity. Sonic Rush has wacky zones you'd expect to see in a classic-era game, but also has a GUN base. Sonic Battle has Emerald Town - with its checkered ground and cliffsides (where Tails lives, no less) - right next to the human-populated Central City, which later appeared in Shadow the Hedgehog. And of course, the ancient echidna architecture all over the Mystic Ruins - including parts of it that aren't the fallen Angel Island.

The worlds were always presented as one in the same until around 2010. Now, if you're fine with them just instituting a retcon and accepting the previous inconsistencies as simply no longer canon or otherwise ignorable, that's fine. But I find that to be a really unsatisfying direction for the series to go. The old games were clearly written with a single planet in mind, and this change makes a ton of stuff from those games not make any sense anymore.

I believe we talked before about like... don't bring up Witchkart for this? It's not canon, it's like bringing up AoSTH. Modern Sonic games build on the Classic Sonic games Sonic Team did and had a hand on; not the ones by Aspect or Ancient. (EDIT: seriously, it's games that consistently depict the Chaos Emeralds as being 6 and only existing in South Island, which is where all characters have their adventures. How is it not clear that more than any notion of two worlds, THOSE games weren't written to be a cohesive plot with the Sonic Team ones?) As for background details showing humans, you're overthinking it. Islam doesn't exist in Zelda just because a sampled sentence was used in the music. They used hieroglyphics and so on as shorthand for "ancient ruins".

 

You can dislike the setting, but again and underlining- unless you think either Ian or Iizuka are lying, this has been, explicitly, the intended setting, since at least 1998. Sonic X underlines it, and to be frank I think stuff like the OVA's "Land of Darkness/Land of the Sky" indicates they already had the concept bouncing around before Adventure, much like other elements in the OVA get echoed later on. Likely, side teams like Dimps didn't get a full grasp of it, hence stuff like GUN in Rush (though that can also just easily be an instance of GUN coming over to Sonic's World), because Sonic Team's policy is that this is the sort of lore that is useless to be throwing at the masses because it distracts them, and frankly I can't fully disagree considering how many people looked at a game like Unleashed with its clear focus on telling a story about a couple characters and instead went "where's Shadow and Angel Island". Lore obsession is a killer of tone for a franchise like this.

[Dr. Mechano]

15 minutes ago, The KKM said:

They did. An entire planet without them, even. Back in 1998, even.

I believe we talked before about like... don't bring up Witchkart for this? It's not canon, it's like bringing up AoSTH.

And what are you basing that assertion on?

Did anyone at Sega say those games aren't canon?

Considering she (and other Sky Patrol characters) appear in the 20th anniversary application Sonic Tweet - made by Sega of Japan themselves - I'd say she holds more weight than characters from clearly noncanon sources like the cartoons.

Furthermore, that the Game Gear games tended to only use six of the seven Emeralds or mostly take place on South Island doesn't outright contradict any of the other games. Sonic 1 only used six Emeralds too. Some plots simply don't use the full set of all seven, and that's fine.

The 8-bit titles don't glaringly contradict any of the 16-bit titles, so I see no reason not to count them as canon - especially when aspects from them, like Fang, Sonic 2 8-bit's Silver Sonic, etc. appeared in Mania.

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You can dislike the setting, but again and underlining- unless you think either Ian or Iizuka are lying, this has been, explicitly, the intended setting, since at least 1998. 

Ian is the one who said "Don't worry about the two worlds anymore," and I do trust him there. I believe that Sega has most likely recanted their position and we'll be seeing something else in the official encyclopedia or even new official media like the games or comics soon. Why would Ian even bring it up otherwise, unless something has changed?

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Lore obsession is a killer of tone for a franchise like this.

I mean... wouldn't one world be less "lore-obsessed" than arbitrarily splitting the world into two?

Just accepting that, yeah, humans and animals live in the same world and that some parts of that world are more cartoonish than others feels a lot simpler and less needlessly complicated than "The entire series has actually been taking place on two planets this entire time."

[Wraith]

If Sonic Team's goal is simple lore, I'm not even sure why these additional wrinkles that they also want to avoid telling consumers about exist. Surely, the best way to make it so people don't focus on your lore is to actually make your lore as simple as possible to understand. The vast majority of Sonic players have interpreted Sonic's planet as one planet, so make it so. Then the issue leaves the zeitgeist for good.

This goes for their other quirks like Classic Sonic as well. It's physically in the past, so make it canonically so too.

This is probably the reasoning Ian used to get them to loosen up on it, now that I think about it.

 

[Eurisko]

I don't think it will correct much at all.

I think trying to fix any of it into something consistent at this point is a lost cause. The Alien franchise owned by 20th Century fox/Disney  has just officially basically said that everything and anything can be canon with a 'whatever works' take on things. That was after YEARS of over convoluted and contradictory plot points across many movies, books, comics and video games. 

Sonic is not much different and again, after decades of inconsistency,  the everything is canon approach is the only way forward and to please anyone who wants anything to be officially canon.

[User18091994]

12 hours ago, Kazhnuz said:

Spoiler

1 - Well, Flynn works on the encyclopedia, and said something like there will never be a canon map of the Sonic world on a recent bumblekast. In the same where he said that we shouldn't worry about two world with a "satisfied smile". So it's pretty sure info for me, as it comes from the person that currently work on the biggest source we will have xD. (and a headcanon is about stuff inside the story, not about how they work their story)

2, 3 and 5 - Well… With what we've got as info for 1, we can think there won't be.

4 - Flynn see Battle and Advance as Animal World, so on that one I follow his vision. And even GHZ in Battle is IIRC only in bonus maps. TBH I can understand why you see Battle as HW, but Advance ? They're basically the Classic with Green Eyes and not-as-good-gameplay. Central City is for me a better exemple. There will be inconsistencies. Like that we have consistencies without it. It's a "choose your poison"-type of situation.

6 - Well, on that point, it needs SOME consistency, but tbh it really depends of what you do with it. Sonic have a kinda loose canon, which is pretty common in some long-term IP (see Doctor Who, or some other japanese canon like Gundam). Canon sometimes mean "official" more than a biblical canon, as our vision of canon basically comes from angry Sherlock Holmes fan IIRC (and from religion, as the world, well… is a religious one). Sonic is a loooong running IP, where each game can be made by different people, that won't always want to follow the established rules to more give their vision of Sonic. It's difficult to really have a strong canon with that, so loose canon will certainly be more what we'll get. And a looot of headcanon xD

 

1 - Ian Flynn said now that the two worlds concept is no more, but in the past he said it was canon and it was true in the IDW comics as well. Probably now that he is involved in the encyclopedia, he convinced Sega to abandon the two worlds concept and come up with a better retcon to explain the inconsistencies in the games' continuity. I'm fine with that as long as the explanations make sense. We have to wait for the book.

4 - Well, how can Battle and Advance be on the Animal World if you are saying the two worlds concept is no more? Ian Flynn said to not worry about the two worlds anymore, when he was answering a question about an inconsistency in those games

6 - Doctor Who is a series with a very interesting and connected lore. They do rectcons all the time, but they always tried to be consistent and the universe of the series to have coherent rules about how the things work. For example, rules about how the time travels work. When it comes to Sonic, the series stopped caring about the lore in 2008 Sonic Unleashed and even before that there were inconsistencies and continuity issues.

12 hours ago, Kazhnuz said:

This one is kinda interesting as it's the issues when we write that kind of long term series.

Basically, Heroes and Shadow where available on GC (where SA2 was also available) and PS2/XB where it wasn't. Not to mention that Heroes was released 2 years after and Shadow 4 years after. If you look at both game, they re-introduce much of what we need to understand the story. In Heroes Shadow's not being dead is the start of the story, and in Shadow, most info we need about SA2 were reintroduced even though it's a direct sequel. They do that because each Sonic games have to be a starting point for new player. Each and every game can have people that play it without having ever played another Sonic game. And this change a lot what your option are.

So why not the moon ? Because it would need reintroducing some info for just a background details that would give their artist more work. Even just some years after, it wasn't really worth it for the Sonic Team. It's a choice they made. It's the kind of things that's not really usefull if you aren't actively using it (either to remind people of Shadow's faults or how far Eggman can go… even if he kinda went farther in more recent game). So TBH, it's for me a logical choice. Remember that we are the big fans who know obscure useless things. People that engage in online discussion about a videogame are less than 5% of the whole playerbase. Our needs and what we want are not the needs of the whole playerbase. So sometimes, it's better to not keep an small established details to streamline the future games.

Putting the broken moon in the background wouldn't require any more work than they already had. Designing and rendering a broken moon is as demanding as designing and rendering the whole moon. I don't see why Sonic Adventure 2 not being available on PS2/XB would be an excuse for this kind of continuity mistake.
 

4 hours ago, The KKM said:

You can dislike the setting, but again and underlining- unless you think either Ian or Iizuka are lying, this has been, explicitly, the intended setting, since at least 1998. Sonic X underlines it, and to be frank I think stuff like the OVA's "Land of Darkness/Land of the Sky" indicates they already had the concept bouncing around before Adventure, much like other elements in the OVA get echoed later on. Likely, side teams like Dimps didn't get a full grasp of it, hence stuff like GUN in Rush (though that can also just easily be an instance of GUN coming over to Sonic's World), because Sonic Team's policy is that this is the sort of lore that is useless to be throwing at the masses because it distracts them, and frankly I can't fully disagree considering how many people looked at a game like Unleashed with its clear focus on telling a story about a couple characters and instead went "where's Shadow and Angel Island". Lore obsession is a killer of tone for a franchise like this.

Sonic OVA is as canon as Sonic SatAM, Sonic Underground and Sonic Boom.

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because Sonic Team's policy is that this is the sort of lore that is useless to be throwing at the masses because it distracts them, and frankly I can't fully disagree considering how many people looked at a game like Unleashed with its clear focus on telling a story about a couple characters and instead went "where's Shadow and Angel Island". Lore obsession is a killer of tone for a franchise like this.

It's totally possible to tell a simple and self-contained story without contradicting past games 
 

3 hours ago, Wraith said:

If Sonic Team's goal is simple lore, I'm not even sure why these additional wrinkles that they also want to avoid telling consumers about exist. Surely, the best way to make it so people don't focus on your lore is to actually make your lore as simple as possible to understand. The vast majority of Sonic players have interpreted Sonic's planet as one planet, so make it so. Then the issue leaves the zeitgeist for good.

This goes for their other quirks like Classic Sonic as well. It's physically in the past, so make it canonically so too.

This is probably the reasoning Ian used to get them to loosen up on it, now that I think about it.

 

They used to care about lore. From Sonic Adventure 1 to Sonic 2006 the games used to have a lot of world-building and lore. There were some inconsistencies, but because of bad writing and continuity mistakes. Sonic 2006 happened after Shadow the Hedgehog, Shadow carries the character development he had in the end of his own game, there are mentions to the events of Sonic Adventure 2 and Heroes in some dialogues in his story, for example.

When Sonic Unleashed was released that we can say Sonic Team gave up on the lore and continuity almost entirely.

But the thing is: we can't assume Sonic Team will never care about the lore again just because they didn't care during the 2010s (or the meta era), because Sonic has different eras throughout the franchise history and all of them have different priorities when it comes to story, world-building, art style, etc. It's pretty clear to me that we are entering another era with Sonic Rangers, so a lot of things could change, including the priority Sega and Sonic Team give to the world-building and lore on the games.

 

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If Sonic Team's goal is simple lore, I'm not even sure why these additional wrinkles that they also want to avoid telling consumers about exist. Surely, the best way to make it so people don't focus on your lore is to actually make your lore as simple as possible to understand. The vast majority of Sonic players have interpreted Sonic's planet as one planet, so make it so. Then the issue leaves the zeitgeist for good.

This goes for their other quirks like Classic Sonic as well. It's physically in the past, so make it canonically so too.

This is probably the reasoning Ian used to get them to loosen up on it, now that I think about it.

Alternative timelines could be seen as alternative dimensions if we consider that in modern physics time travel is the same thing as space travel because space-time are one thing. At least classic Sonic being from another dimension isn't a continuity error

[Kazhnuz]

56 minutes ago, Raphael Martins said:

1 - Ian Flynn said now that the two worlds concept is no more, but in the past he said it was canon and it was true in the IDW comics as well. Probably now that he is involved in the encyclopedia, he convinced Sega to abandon the two worlds concept and come up with a better retcon to explain the inconsistencies in the games' continuity. I'm fine with that as long as the explanations make sense. We have to wait for the book.

4 - Well, how can Battle and Advance be on the Animal World if you are saying the two worlds concept is no more? Ian Flynn said to not worry about the two worlds anymore, when he was answering a question about an inconsistency in those games

6 - Doctor Who is a series with a very interesting and connected lore. They do rectcons all the time, but they always tried to be consistent and the universe of the series to have coherent rules about how the things work. For example, rules about how the time travels work. When it comes to Sonic, the series stopped caring about the lore in 2008 Sonic Unleashed and even before that there were inconsistencies and continuity issues.

1 - It's not because the 2W/1W might have changed that it means that the maps aren't 100% canon will change. Especially as he said that at the same time he said to not worry about the two world, and that the Encyclopedia will be released in November. It's certainly not finished, but it's coming fast (and that this kind of book takes a while to be finished, so certainly the writing must be pretty far). For the moment, the info we have is that they isn't such a things as "a Sonic World Map" because it changes all the time, and it's as fresh as the "don't worry about 2W".

4 - Because what I meant is that they're "Animal World" if we are using the 2W theory. Of course if there is one world everything is in the same XD

6 - Doctor Who is pretty interesting and have a interesting lore, but it also have a loose canon. And… they don't really try to be consistent, except when it suit their plot. I mean, it's consistent as long as we have the same writer or group of writer, but the rest of the time, things will be inconsistent. But it doesn't change that it's pretty nice. In a way, such universe often tend to have loose canon, as it's basically not possible to keep everything consistent. And all IP like that tend to have these kind of issues, as not all writer will know all the "lore of Sonic the Hedgehog", some will prefer to do their own stuff.

56 minutes ago, Raphael Martins said:

They used to care about lore. From Sonic Adventure 1 to Sonic 2006 the games used to have a lot of world-building and lore.

It's mostly because they had some common writers, so it created a more common ground. I mean, the problem between Shadow and Sonic Battle show that they didn't care that much when there wasn't a common writter on both game, as they basically totally contradict each other in spirit XD And Sonic 2006 basically do its own things outside some reference, and Shadow evolution that is because again : common writer. For instance, Blaze' retcon isn't just "bad writing". It's outright not caring about what Rush established. And Eggman Nega kinda works basically by accident too.

Some people cared about what they writed… But as a whole, canon wasn't the most important things. The most important things where the story. That's why games have been described as "self-contained bubble". The references they use aren't here to create a big, overaching narrative, but to serve the game own story.

[User18091994]

38 minutes ago, Kazhnuz said:

1 - It's not because the 2W/1W might have changed that it means that the maps aren't 100% canon will change. Especially as he said that at the same time he said to not worry about the two world, and that the Encyclopedia will be released in November. It's certainly not finished, but it's coming fast (and that this kind of book takes a while to be finished, so certainly the writing must be pretty far). For the moment, the info we have is that they isn't such a things as "a Sonic World Map" because it changes all the time, and it's as fresh as the "don't worry about 2W".

4 - Because what I meant is that they're "Animal World" if we are using the 2W theory. Of course if there is one world everything is in the same XD

6 - Doctor Who is pretty interesting and have a interesting lore, but it also have a loose canon. And… they don't really try to be consistent, except when it suit their plot. I mean, it's consistent as long as we have the same writer or group of writer, but the rest of the time, things will be inconsistent. But it doesn't change that it's pretty nice. In a way, such universe often tend to have loose canon, as it's basically not possible to keep everything consistent. And all IP like that tend to have these kind of issues, as not all writer will know all the "lore of Sonic the Hedgehog", some will prefer to do their own stuff.

The maps don't need to be canon, however, you can't have the same place in different planets. I don't agree with you about Doctor Who. They don't change things in the canon without an explanation or story arc to justify. It's not like Sonic at all.

38 minutes ago, Kazhnuz said:

It's mostly because they had some common writers, so it created a more common ground. I mean, the problem between Shadow and Sonic Battle show that they didn't care that much when there wasn't a common writter on both game, as they basically totally contradict each other in spirit XD And Sonic 2006 basically do its own things outside some reference, and Shadow evolution that is because again : common writer. For instance, Blaze' retcon isn't just "bad writing". It's outright not caring about what Rush established. And Eggman Nega kinda works basically by accident too.

Some people cared about what they writed… But as a whole, canon wasn't the most important things. The most important things where the story. That's why games have been described as "self-contained bubble". The references they use aren't here to create a big, overaching narrative, but to serve the game own story.

The series doesn't have to have the same writers to be consistent. A good and professional writer would research and know about the franchise they are working on and provide coherent stories according to the pre-estabilished universe. Ken Pontac and Warren Graff said in some interviews that they only read about the characters and the universe on Wikipedia.

In DC and Marvel Comics the writers change all the time and you don't see this kind of inconsistencies. This is no excuse.

[SBR2]

24 minutes ago, Raphael Martins said:

Ken Pontac and Warren Graff said in some interviews that they only read about the characters and the universe on Wikipedia.

Can I just say the idea you have to be a super fan with an encyclopedic knowledge to work on a series always rubs me the wrong way? Not that you're saying that it's just something I see people say a lot.

Like a lot of great installments in franchises were done by people who didn't know a lot going in. Bob Forward and Larry Ditillio didn't know a lot about Transformers when they started work on Beast Wars and Eddie Guzillian barely knew anything about Power Rangers or even what Sentai he was adapting when he was showrunning RPM and these are considered some of the best series in their respective franchises. 

[User18091994]

2 minutes ago, SBR2 said:

Can I just say the idea you have to be a super fan with an encyclopedic knowledge to work on a series always rubs me the wrong way?

Like a lot of great installments in franchises were done by people who didn't know a lot going in. Bob Forward and Larry Ditillio didn't know a lot about Transformers when they started work on Beast Wars and Eddie Guzillian barely knew anything about Power Rangers or even what Sentai he was adapting when he was showrunning RPM and these are considered some of the best series in their respective franchises. 

You don't have to be a super fan, you have to know the series you are working on, it's your job to study the characters and the universe. Ian Flynn doesn't work only in Sonic comics, he wrote Mega Man comics, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and a lot of other series, and he always delivers a good and professional job.

[Kazhnuz]

43 minutes ago, Raphael Martins said:

The series doesn't have to have the same writers to be consistent. A good and professional writer would research and know about the franchise they are working on and provide coherent stories according to the pre-estabilished universe. Ken Pontac and Warren Graff said in some interviews that they only read about the characters and the universe on Wikipedia.

In DC and Marvel Comics the writers change all the time and you don't see this kind of inconsistencies. This is no excuse.

Well, they are inconsistencies in comics. A lot of them, even. Some stories are retold differently with time, characterization can change A LOT (the kind of reason that I always kinda find fun how people are furious about Sonic's characterization change), super power can come and go… And even with that they suffer the problem of strong canon : loosing sales because getting new reader is hard (something that also suffered a bit the Sonic Archie comics, in that it was kinda difficult for many newer fans), and thus they sometimes get desperate to "make things fresh again".

( And TBH, Pontaff aren't really the cause of lore discrepancy. I mean, the most they changed about the games are the characterization, they don't really create the stories. And the difference of charaterization between games aren't really lore issues, it's more what is the vision of the character. It's the most basic normal change between writers. And it'll certainly change again with the next writer, I mean, even between Evan and Ian we can see a different Sonic. Because how people see the character is personal. )

Having more continuity can be good, sometimes. But most of the author that are remembered aren't kinda the ones that care the most about "providing coherent stories". It's most often those that bring things to the table. If the next writer decide to break convention of Sonic, and do something that isn't cohesive with the previous game, it won't suffice to say if he is a good writer or not. The question will be more if he do it on purpose or not.  Flynn's way of doing comics and story is good (especially for the weird nerds like us), but it's not the only one.

The way game could be less contradictory between each other is if they way even more self contained, in a way XD That might be why Forces contain more contradiction than Colors, Generations and Lost World (that have nearly no big contradiction), as it's one that is the most linked to the rest of the universe.

[User18091994]

Just now, Kazhnuz said:

Well, they are inconsistencies in comics. A lot of them, even. Some stories are retold differently with time, characterization can change A LOT (the kind of reason that I always kinda find fun how people are furious about Sonic's characterization change), super power can come and go… And even with that they suffer the problem of strong canon : loosing sales because getting new reader is hard (something that also suffered a bit the Sonic Archie comics, in that it was kinda difficult for many newer fans), and thus they sometimes get desperate to "make things fresh again".

( And TBH, Pontaff aren't really the cause of lore discrepancy. I mean, the most they changed about the games are the characterization, they don't really create the stories. And the difference of charaterization between games aren't really lore issues, it's more what is the vision of the character. It's the most basic normal change between writers. )

Having more continuity can be good, sometimes. But most of the author that are remembered aren't kinda the ones that care the most about "providing coherent stories". It's most often those that bring things to the table.

Nope, in the comics' universe there are different continuities. You won't see this kind of changes and inconsistencies in the same continuity. For example, you have the New 52 (on DC universe) that the timeline changed and almost all the characters had different origins, however, every time this kind of change happened, they provide a story arc or saga to justify. The saga that justified the changes in the New 52's universe was Flashpoint, for example. Later we have a saga to justify DC Rebirth. Also, in the DC comics there are a lot of graphic novels that aren't canon or happened in alternative universes or realities, such as Batman The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller.

Of course there are inconsistencies in these franchises, but they are always trying to fix with sagas and retcons. There's still a solid foundation to the universe. Everyone knows that Batman lives in Gothan City, that Superman lives in Metropolis, etc. When it comes to the Sonic franchise, there's not a solid foundation about how the Sonic's universe work, and they change things without any kind of coherent explanation, the best example is this "two worlds" thing.

[Kazhnuz]

Even in a same continuity, things can change a lot, even with backstories. Retcons, different vision are part of the life of comics books. Especially when universe tend to get old, and that a writers would prefer something different for a character. I mean, TVTropes have four pages just for Marvel's retcons (and 3 for DC) XD It's part of life with such enormous franchise. Another big exemple is Gundam. I agree on one things though : Sonic define less it's "physical universe", and have more changing geography than comics book (but they take place on a version of our real-world earth)

Sure, Sonic would need to be better in that prospect, and remove the big useless retcons (they should be the result of creativity more than just some dispute). But TBH, all in one… as long as they don't have the biggest issues, not having a strong continuity or a really well-defined universe, won't be their biggest issue, not even really a big one. Their most urgent need is how their story is engaging, more than lore/canon. Especially as what define Sonic is more how he works as a character and dynamics than an universe. It's a different way to do things.

But it'll certainly continue to be loose canon (especially as still today they seems to be change between what games are canon or not, the two last bumblekast seems to show that). Reuse some stuff when they feel like it (and if the leaks that predicted Rangers last summer are true, we might be near a new big change XD)

[User18091994]

59 minutes ago, Kazhnuz said:

Even in a same continuity, things can change a lot, even with backstories. Retcons, different vision are part of the life of comics books. Especially when universe tend to get old, and that a writers would prefer something different for a character. I mean, TVTropes have four pages just for Marvel's retcons (and 3 for DC) XD It's part of life with such enormous franchise. Another big exemple is Gundam. I agree on one things though : Sonic define less it's "physical universe", and have more changing geography than comics book (but they take place on a version of our real-world earth)

Sure, Sonic would need to be better in that prospect, and remove the big useless retcons (they should be the result of creativity more than just some dispute). But TBH, all in one… as long as they don't have the biggest issues, not having a strong continuity or a really well-defined universe, won't be their biggest issue, not even really a big one. Their most urgent need is how their story is engaging, more than lore/canon. Especially as what define Sonic is more how he works as a character and dynamics than an universe. It's a different way to do things.

But it'll certainly continue to be loose canon (especially as still today they seems to be change between what games are canon or not, the two last bumblekast seems to show that). Reuse some stuff when they feel like it (and if the leaks that predicted Rangers last summer are true, we might be near a new big change XD)

This comparison still doesn't make sense, Marvel Comics and DC still focus to provide coherent world-building and lore. You are saying like this other franchises having inconsistencies and changes throughout their history is the same thing as Sonic changing things without any kind of coherent explanation.

[Kazhnuz]

I'm talking about the existence of inconsistencies and how things can change, not about what the focus are. I even said how Sonic define less its universe ^^ I don't say that both are exactly the same.

( And TBH, you're the one that started the comparison, so I would think you thought comparing both made sense xD )

 

But for me yeah, in a way, they part of a same problem : that you can't really have strong continuity in a long period, you'll always have some kind of loose canon (and which is different from lore, as the lore can keep being the same, only the canon will change). It's the core issue of that. I agree though that its sometimes stronger with some IP than other.

In Sonic due to some factor, internal (videogame, more time between stuff, different culture) make it some sort of a bigger issue, but the core question is basically the same : how to keep consistency on several years, with teams that'll change and that won't want to do the same. And why some writers won't really care that much about keeping things as they were. I mean, here is the whole real question about lore : What if the writers want to do something else ? The specific case in Pontaff is that it's not really just the writers, as they aren't the cause of much change (I mean, they write the character a bit different… but that's standard, the changes between Sonic between pre-Pontaff and Pontaff is kinda normal "different writer" stuff).

 

But I think that the Sonic IP have a really specific issue, that isn't often seen elsewhere : it's that sometimes, it's when they care about that we get more inconsistencies (the two-world is a big example of that. To create something like that, you actually have to care about the representation of your own world. If they didn't care, we would just have Sonic Forces with no human and that's it… In a way, the "two world" is the "retcon that make the world have more sense", just that they started having it before the actual change was shown).

In a way, if Sonic's story were just some stories about "yet another place in the world where Sonic have an Adventure", we would have less issues XD Maybe that's actually at least a part of the real problem : more than about how they "don't care", it would be that they seems to have thought too much that it needed to be "fixed" with this retcon (and maybe that's an issue bigger than just the lore, maybe that the whole idea of "Sonic need to be fixed" is more detrimental than anything else).

( Which, breaking things even more while trying to fix them… is also kinda comic-booky XD )

 

[User18091994]

1 hour ago, Kazhnuz said:

Spoiler

I'm talking about the existence of inconsistencies and how things can change, not about what the focus are. I even said how Sonic define less its universe ^^ I don't say that both are exactly the same.

( And TBH, you're the one that started the comparison, so I would think you thought comparing both made sense xD )

 

But for me yeah, in a way, they part of a same problem : that you can't really have strong continuity in a long period, you'll always have some kind of loose canon (and which is different from lore, as the lore can keep being the same, only the canon will change). It's the core issue of that. I agree though that its sometimes stronger with some IP than other.

In Sonic due to some factor, internal (videogame, more time between stuff, different culture) make it some sort of a bigger issue, but the core question is basically the same : how to keep consistency on several years, with teams that'll change and that won't want to do the same. And why some writers won't really care that much about keeping things as they were. I mean, here is the whole real question about lore : What if the writers want to do something else ? The specific case in Pontaff is that it's not really just the writers, as they aren't the cause of much change (I mean, they write the character a bit different… but that's standard, the changes between Sonic between pre-Pontaff and Pontaff is kinda normal "different writer" stuff).

 

But I think that the Sonic IP have a really specific issue, that isn't often seen elsewhere : it's that sometimes, it's when they care about that we get more inconsistencies (the two-world is a big example of that. To create something like that, you actually have to care about the representation of your own world. If they didn't care, we would just have Sonic Forces with no human and that's it… In a way, the "two world" is the "retcon that make the world have more sense", just that they started having it before the actual change was shown).

In a way, if Sonic's story were just some stories about "yet another place in the world where Sonic have an Adventure", we would have less issues XD Maybe that's actually at least a part of the real problem : more than about how they "don't care", it would be that they seems to have thought too much that it needed to be "fixed" with this retcon (and maybe that's an issue bigger than just the lore, maybe that the whole idea of "Sonic need to be fixed" is more detrimental than anything else).

( Which, breaking things even more while trying to fix them… is also kinda comic-booky XD )

 

I'm not against changes, I'm against changes without good explanations or justifications. Just throwing a random idea like "two worlds" without even trying to make this concept make sense with all the +200 games release is just poor execution. That's why I mention DC comics, they change the status quo of the characters and universe all the time, but they provide explanations with retcons and sagas.

[SBR2]

6 hours ago, Raphael Martins said:

Nope, in the comics' universe there are different continuities. You won't see this kind of changes and inconsistencies in the same continuity.

Wow. That is an objectivelywrong statement. Brian Michael Bendis once had famously Jewish character Moon Knight munching down on a hot dog in his garbage Moon Knight series. 

Writers can and do fuck up basic things in comics all the time. 

[Kazhnuz]

5 hours ago, Raphael Martins said:

That's why I mention DC comics, they change the status quo of the characters and universe all the time, but they provide explanations with retcons and sagas.

As I said, you can find a whole lot of exemple where… nope, on the tvtropes page about retcons we can see that we have a whole lot of changes mostly because it fit better with what they were doing. And TBH most of the time, for me the retcon is part of "changing stuff". Even if sometimes it's for the better, sometimes well it create the same contradiction that everywhere.

11 hours ago, Raphael Martins said:

Putting the broken moon in the background wouldn't require any more work than they already had. Designing and rendering a broken moon is as demanding as designing and rendering the whole moon. I don't see why Sonic Adventure 2 not being available on PS2/XB would be an excuse for this kind of continuity mistake.

I missed this one.

It IS more work ? I mean, most of the time, putting the moon on a background in a 3D game is taking a moon picture and doing texture edit by changing the colors, adding other texture as an overlay, photoshoping stuff. A broken moon would be more work as you have to redraw stuff or some part. And even if you have to do the moon from scratch… the whole moon would be just a simple circle (sphere if you're doing it 3D, most of the time you won't), while the broken moon would be a longer process of drawing it (modeling if you're doing it 3D).

And about the "why", it's simply because having the moon broken isn't interesting as it would bring more question that it would be useful to the plot. Self-contained bubbles, they had what is needed for the story, and a fucking broken moon in the sky isn't useful. It's distracting. And for XB/PS2, they don't even get the adventage of advertising, as the game wouldn't be accessible to these buyer. So all in one, putting the moon broken would be more work, wouldn't serve the new story and wouldn't even get them more revenue. For something that only the biggest Sonic nerd would care about, it's no wonder that they decided it wasn't worth it.

Even in ArchieSonic post-reboot, the biggest nerd-charged stuff using Game!Sonic lore, they only showed the moon broken when it mattered, and from space. The rest of the time it was exactly like in the game, a normal moon shown from the planet.

The moon isn't shown broken in the next game, because there is simply no good reason to show it broken, except for the sake of "continuity". And as the game have to be self-sufficient, it means no good reason.

 

And that's the kind of things that won't change :')

[User18091994]

31 minutes ago, Kazhnuz said:

As I said, you can find a whole lot of exemple where… nope, on the tvtropes page about retcons we can see that we have a whole lot of changes mostly because it fit better with what they were doing. And TBH most of the time, for me the retcon is part of "changing stuff". Even if sometimes it's for the better, sometimes well it create the same contradiction that everywhere.

There's no excuse. Every other franchise you used as an example does retcons in way more clever and interesting ways. Doctor Who has whole seasons and sagas about them. Even when there are inconsistencies remaining, they never stop addressing them with interesting and engaging story arcs. The whole "two world" concept was just lazy and poorly executed, and there's no excuse for that. I will say it again: I'm not against changes and retcons, I'm against lazy executions.

31 minutes ago, Kazhnuz said:

It IS more work ? I mean, most of the time, putting the moon on a background in a 3D game is taking a moon picture and doing texture edit by changing the colors, adding other texture as an overlay, photoshoping stuff. A broken moon would be more work as you have to redraw stuff or some part. And even if you have to do the moon from scratch… the whole moon would be just a simple circle (sphere if you're doing it 3D, most of the time you won't), while the broken moon would be a longer process of drawing it (modeling if you're doing it 3D).

And about the "why", it's simply because having the moon broken isn't interesting as it would bring more question that it would be useful to the plot. Self-contained bubbles, they had what is needed for the story, and a fucking broken moon in the sky isn't useful. It's distracting. And for XB/PS2, they don't even get the adventage of advertising, as the game wouldn't be accessible to these buyer. So all in one, putting the moon broken would be more work, wouldn't serve the new story and wouldn't even get them more revenue. For something that only the biggest Sonic nerd would care about, it's no wonder that they decided it wasn't worth it.

Even in ArchieSonic post-reboot, the biggest nerd-charged stuff using Game!Sonic lore, they only showed the moon broken when it mattered, and from space. The rest of the time it was exactly like in the game, a normal moon shown from the planet.

The moon isn't shown broken in the next game, because there is simply no good reason to show it broken, except for the sake of "continuity". And as the game have to be self-sufficient, it means no good reason.

We are talking about a huge video game company and games with huge budgets. There's no reason to assume a moon in the background would be too much work. And I can't see why consistency wouldn't be reason enough to do that. And in Shadow the Hedgehog the moon isn't just a JPEG in the background, it is in the opening CGI of the game.

31 minutes ago, Kazhnuz said:

And that's the kind of things that won't change :')

It doesn't change the fact this is a problem, and it is poor execution. You guys always bring this arguments like: "Sonic Team doesn't care, they are not going to change", like this change the fact that this is just lazy. 

[Kazhnuz]

It's more decision than laziness. It's not just "oh we didn't want because we had aqua-poney", it's more that they prefered to focus on other section. I mean, Sonic Channel know that they know their own lore, and Pontaff aren't the one making the stories. And basically, 2W isn't laziness, it's even more work that just not caring would do xD

The fact that they got out of they way to tell it's like that, seemingly thought about how characters travel from, and created restriction based on that, simply because there where a discrepency between the Adventure and some early canon (and thus the vision of a lot of fans about what was the Sonic Universe) show that it's not a question of laziness. Had they be lazy and not caring, we wouldn't be having all this debate.

Even if it's not adressed in the game, the very fact of thinking about it is more work that it should be XD And that's actually might be what will remove it : it's too much work, way simpler to simply not care and say that Sonic is on a giant rock floating in space, and that there's stuff on it. Nothing to think about it, there is just location and stuff, and Sonic is a blue rat that run everywhere done.

21 minutes ago, Raphael Martins said:

We are talking about a huge video game company and games with huge budgets. There's no reason to assume a moon in the background would be too much work. And I can't see why consistency wouldn't be reason enough to do that. And in Shadow the Hedgehog the moon isn't just a JPEG in the background, it is in the opening CGI of the game.

It doesn't change that it's still less work than doing a friggin rendering of a broken moon xD

I didn't say that it was "too much work", just that it was "useless work". There is a difference between both. But most often, you want to avoid useless (or here even detrimental as it would be a useless detail creating question that doesn't serve the current plot) work that only nerds like us care about xD

Sonic always aim to be as approachable as possible (another thing that might have doomed the two-world if it's really being removed), so having a broken moon in the sky isn't a thing that is thought as useful.

[FlameStream]

It's less about being lazy but more about practicality. As much some would like things to be connected this way, it's not possible or wanted depending on the case.