Sonic the Hedgehog: The Complete Timeline

the following video is a two and a half hour video detailing the history and context and lore behind the story of Sonic the Hedgehog this being a three-part series I did back at the tail end of 2022 and this video is going to be all three parts put together although there's going to be an extra segment added in and an extra Corrections and footnotes here to establish context in response to some of the comments the video got the first time around so if you have seen these before I feel like they're fun to be had and watching it again but before I can even think about discussing the lore of Sonic the Hedgehog I Gotta Serve up a sweet juicy ad because that's right this video was brought to you by the one the only rage Shadow Legends and as if that wasn't enough during the next 60 seconds I am going to give you the release date of the Sonic Chronicles review that is most certainly in the works he said sarcastically raid Shadow Legends is a game for mobile devices that have been going on 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the most recent one is like Ratchet and Clank other series are more complicated however they like the metal gear solid or Devil May Cry games explicitly state with the order of events is so the only debate is when those details get rearranged but then you get a franchise like The Legend of Zelda which has been running for over 30 years and never had a consistent storyline to follow until Nintendo officially published a chronology in the series's art book of course there is then the subject of today's video Sonic the Hedgehog this is also a series that's been running for over 30 years with a crap ton of games and while it's largely been one continuity the people in charge have never really bothered to definitively State how the Sonic series fits together in 2021 the Sonic encyclospedia was released published by Dark Horse like the Zelda Hyrule Historia which got people thinking we might get a definitive Sonic timeline but we didn't I think there are a couple reasons why this is one they probably saw the Zelda Timeline didn't really achieve anything other than making the debate amongst hardcore fans even more Fierce and also put a creative limitation for all the future Zelda games as they'd have to take that timeline into consideration when conceptualizing every game they do going forward two in Sonic's case a lot of it could just be boiled down to just going by release order even if I think the discussion can be greatly expanded from that starting point and three there was this tweet from Justin thorman one of the social media managers for Sonic the Hedgehog their official position is that everything is Canon to the Sonic series and so when doing social media posts and videos they feel free to just pick and choose whatever material they want to work with this week whether that be from the main games like Sonic Unleashed or a spin-off like Sonic Riders he explains here that fans are free to come up with whatever headcanon they want this is something I appreciate from the social media team we really don't need an official timeline of games that they can just change in a year when it's best left to the hardcore fans since let's be honest we're the only ones who care to begin with so my head Canon of how the Sonic games play out is what the next couple videos be all about one might wonder why we'd care about the Sonic chronology and while I come up with an answer to that question let's just start the video and get to some ground rules rule one we're only discussing video games today Sonic has existed in pretty much every medium you can think of Western Comics manga Western cartoons anime CG cartoons and animated film live action films even but all where discussing is the video game continuity now pretty much all those other versions of Sonic are alternate universes anyway but sometimes the games would get prequel comics and I'm just not gonna bother looking too far into those games only if a detail to the shadow Arc is Canon to an episode of Sonic X that doesn't mean it's Canon to Sonic Adventure 2. the game that those episodes are based on similarly games based on other continuities don't count either so I won't be talking about Sonic Boom rise of lyric past this moment for example as that game was supposed to be a prequel to The Sonic Boom TV series I also am tossing out Sonic spinball as the game acknowledges characters from the sad am Sonic cartoons in the 90s which is not canon to the games rule 2 no crossovers Sonic appearing alongside other brands is cool and all but it's a complete non-factor in this video so Sonic's Lego Dimensions campaign is to be disregarded and also sorry to say but Sonic saving the Nintendo cast from taboo and Super Smash Bros brawl is not canon rule 3 if a game has no story then I can't count it this should be self-explanatory but I just mean to say that Sonic can Sega All-Stars Racing won't get a spot in the video because it's a crossover but even then if I was counting those there's no plot you just race so I can't put it anywhere on a timeline even if I wanted to rule four in the games from the 90s the plots would change when going from Japanese to English these are differences I can go over in the various games but largely will be sticking to the original Japanese stories and explaining what differences exist on a game by game basis finally Rule 5 as established this is pure headcanon meaning everything I say here is just how it makes sense to me sometimes official statements will be taken into account other times they'll be tossed out if I think it presents a problem for the timeline that's not to say I'm smarter or better than anyone who actually works on the games I'm just saying that some details will get rearranged that might go against what is officially known and has been said but hear me out because I think it'll be a fun ride in the end and this isn't a rule but I figured I'd mention this since this is a three-part video series if you think a game has been left out by accident or something I encourage you to keep an open mind as it'll probably get brought up later in the series Without further Ado I see no better place to begin than with the first game Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega gen Genesis foreign [Music] this one's pretty simple I mean it's the first Sonic game of course it's simple the game's goal was to be a Cutting Edge competitor to Mario so its story only exists to set up the gameplay looking into both the United States manual and the translation of the Japanese manual from Windy that you can find on the website Sonic retro will be referring back to this often you'll see that Sonic 1 story is pretty consistent between regions Sonic the Hedgehog is a super fast blue Hedgehog exploring South Island until one day Dr Ivo Robotnik is capturing the tiny animals in the island and trapping them inside his machines called badnicks to use them in his quest to take over the world it's now up to Sonic to race through the six zones Green Hill Zone marble Zone spring yard Zone Labyrinth Zone Starlight Zone and scrap brain Zone to put a stop to the doctor's diabolical scheme in order to fully save the day Sonic must travel to the special stages to NAB the six Chaos Emeralds to keep them out of robotnik's hands they don't do much else in this game besides that one injected a ton of character into the experience that other games never did like how Sonic faces off with Robotnik at the end of every Zone as he tried to defeat the Hedgehog with some new crazy machine in each one making him a more consistent presence in the game than other gaming villains of the day and I think they did a good job making the final boss but climactic because you reach Robotnik at the end of scrap brain Zone Act 2 only be plunged into act 3 which is another round of Labyrinth Zone the worst stage in the game really getting you fired up to face the final boss and beat the game but like I said there isn't much else happening in this one besides that the only remaining note I have for this game is that Dr Robotnik was a named the U.S localization team had thought up his name was always Dr Eggman in Japan the series later canonized that Robotnik as his real name and that Eggman is a nickname Sana came up with for him that the doctor adopted out of spite as a way to keep using the name Eggman but acknowledging that Robotnik certainly sounds better for a villain Die Hard Sonic fans already know everything I just said but I wanted this video to double serve as my explanation of the timeline but also as an introduction to the series for those who might know of Sonic but don't know all these details I'll try to avoid the outright Story summary in as many games as I can but I figured for the first game it was worth doing to establish the foundation so with that said our timeline begins with Sonic the Hedgehog from 1991. we're off to a good start but things get complicated immediately after this point I did say there existed a crap ton of Sonic games and I wasn't lying as early as 1991 you didn't just have one game titled Sonic the Hedgehog but two Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Master System their console that preceded the Genesis and this version of the game got a port for their Game Gear handheld it houses some of the same stage themes as the Genesis game like Green Hill Labyrinth and scrap brain Zone but entirely new ones like Bridge Zone and Jungle Zone I bring this up because it's a different version of a game that already exists however the story is virtually identical to the Genesis game so therefore I don't think it can count as a separate entity which means the differences housed within are going to be tossed out as non-canon Sonic and Robotnik can only meet for the first time once right so therefore we might as well just go with the Genesis game however the handheld version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is a different story entirely Sonic 2 was the debut of Miles Tales Prower Sonic's new sidekick his big debut was Sonic 2 on the Sega Genesis which we'll definitely get into but there was also another Sonic 2 with a unique plot instead of stages from the console version the plot of the handheld Sonic 2 is that Tails has been captured by Robotnik and you have to spend the entire game trying to rescue him he's not playable in this one placing the handheld Sonic 2 on a timeline alongside the console version is where we run into the first continuity conundrum in the backstory of the handheld Sonic 2 it's made clear that Sonic and Tails already know each other the backstory of the console Sonic 2 details how they met before the events of that game so that should mean that the console version comes first right well the Japanese backstory of the handheld game mentions that this game is after Sonic defeated Dr Eggman on south island a direct reference to the events of Sonic 1. you could just try to ignore that line and say that this is after the console game but then you have the issue of Sonic 3 taking place immediately after Sonic 2 which we'll get to pretty soon you'd then have to make the case that Sonic 2 on Game Gear takes place after Sonic 3 which just doesn't make sense given the fact that the Game Gear Sonic 2 introduces Silver Sonic at the end of the game The Doctor's first attempt at making a robotic Sonic Sonic 3 features Mecha Sonic a creation far more evolved clearly so either he decided to go backwards in technology or this game just has to be before all that so here is an example of headcanon I'm going to alter the details here to make some sense of it all let's just say that tails is backstory of meeting Sonic takes place as described in the console manual for Sonic 2 and then the events of Sonic 2 on Game Gear takes place tails is rescued all is right in the universe placing this game after Sonic 1 and before the Genesis Sonic 2. although while I'm at it let's toss in another game too in 1993 The Game Gear received Sonic chaos Tails was playable in this one and fun fact this was the first time the player was able to make him fly in a game now the game itself is pretty inconsequential from a story perspective it's just another Sonic and Tails vs Eggman plot going through zones and fighting over Chaos Emeralds which for the standards of The Game Gear is exactly what you'd expect but I'm tossing it in at this moment in our adjusted timeline for one reason Sonic 1 took place on south island with six Chaos Emeralds The Game Gear version of Sonic 2 and Sonic chaos both take place on south island as well with those same six emeralds future games will move past this setting so I figured I'd just toss chaos and right here between Sonic 2 handheld and the console version of that game and speaking of which Sonic 2 does a lot to expand the universe of Sonic the Hedgehog I already set up the fact this was the first time the games introduced a new character and it was only the second one Sonic 2 takes place on West Side Island where Miles Prower gets picked on for having two tails that being his nickname one day Sonic Speed past this and the two-tailed fox followed Sonic until they became friends this is consistent in the U.S European and Japanese manuals I already said we were changing the details around so that those other games took place before this game though I just figured I'd go over that backstory now that we're here robotnik's aims are a lot higher on West Side Island than they were on south island as it's uncovered that there's a seventh Chaos Emerald as the doctor plans to use the seven emeralds to launch his space station the Death Egg his cease and desist from lucasfilms must have got lost in the mail if that wasn't enough copyright infringement the seven Chaos Emeralds when collected give Sonic the ability to turn into Super Sonic a golden impervious form a la the seven dragon balls from Dragon Ball Super Sonic doesn't really do anything related to the story of Sonic 2 you can't even use it during the final boss but this is where the iconic form debuted as an excellent reward for collecting all seven emeralds Sonic 2 is bigger than the first one in every respect more stages more variety in those stages it's faster it has an extra playable character a multiplayer mode and as I said it expanded the universe with the introduction of another Island a new character the seventh Chaos Emerald and the Death Egg elements though becomes series Mainstays going forward everything leading up to a finale any player who beat this game back in the 90s would remember Sonic and Tails chase after the doctor's flying fortress on Sonic's by playing the tornado only for tails to get shot down as you have to go through Wing Fortress as Sonic alone reaching the Death Egg where Sonic first faces off against Silver Sonic an evolved form of the robot I previously discussed and then battles the Death Egg Robot an even more difficult final boss than the previous game is it comes with a plethora of seemingly unpredictable attacks and you have to finish it with perfect Precision because one hit is all it takes to kill you the stakes feel high for any player here as back in the day only had so many lives and losing them all meant doing the entire our game over again because these games didn't have save files either needless to say beating this game was a memorable moment for any kid playing this back when it came out which is driven home in the ending as you get a full sequence of Sonic falling from the Death Egg and Tails on the ground taking off from the tornado to save him right in the nick of time a cute ending it shows that one of these Sonic games to hit different compared to other Platformers that didn't put in nearly this much effort although it should be said this was technically the bad ending that I just showed the ending where Sonic gets saved by tails is what happens if you beat the game without collecting the seven Chaos Emeralds when getting all seven emeralds supersonic just flies down to the ground Tails showing up with the plane but Sonic doesn't need his help fans remember the no emeralds ending more fondly because of the fact that the sidekick had a real moment to shine right before the credits and I think that's worth mentioning but technically the seven Chaos Emeralds ending is Canon as we shall see but for right now it goes without saying that Sonic 2 on Genesis takes place after Sonic chaos in our timeline and we're good to go with that now as for We Go From Here I already mentioned that Sonic spin ball gets tossed out because it shows characters from the us cartoons in it and for the same reason Dr robotnik's me and bean machine is also getting removed since it's a game taking place alongside the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog show we also already covered Sonic chaos which was released after Sonic 2 which means the next game to talk about is Sonic CD from 1993. for all intents and purposes this was the next Mainline Sonic game released despite not being called Sonic 3 instead being made for sega's CD add-on to the Genesis I actually own a complete inbox copy of this for Sega CD I don't own a Sega CD but still it's a nice collectible to have alongside my copies of Sonic 1 2 and 3. this game is one where the US manual has to be disregarded some of the details are fine but the writers have made a critical mistake here Sonic CD introduces a new character Amy Rose into the games the US manual calls her princess Sally from the Sonic sad am show that was on at the time I'm not even sure if you can call that a mistake they might have done it because the name would be more familiar to the US kids playing the game but it's not an accurate reflection of the game because it's Amy a new character as for the plot of the this one is little planet is a star that hovers over Neverlake for one month of the year Dr Robotnik has tethered little planet to a nearby Mountain so he can get onto it and use the time stones that reside there to control time and take over little planet Sonic arrives in the scene to stop him but Sonic has a couple of forces in his way this time not just the doctor and his various mechs Sonic has to gather the time stones to travel back in time himself to undo the damage Robotnik has done in the past the future of little planet can remain positive if you destroy robotnik's robot generators in the past you create a good future where technology and the local wildlife and plants live in harmony but if you don't a bad future is created with pollution and deforestation in the present Amy has followed Sonic here being a fan of his but this gets her captured by robotnik's latest creation Metal Sonic the greatest of all robotic Sonic doppelgangers the one that fans liked the most as Metal Sonic would become a recurring villain throughout the series unlike the other robot Sonics I've mentioned Metal Sonic left an impression I think because of how he was the first robotic Sonic that actually resembled Sonic but just looks lifeless in every way that Sonic was well the opposite of that I don't know we just got a cool design his boss fight leaves a lot to be desired though is you have to race past him and start a Speedway act 3 as he slams into a door and is never seen throughout the rest of the game in the end Sonic saves Amy defeats Robotnik and frees little planet it's a pretty self-contained story at the end of the day however it was always debated amongst fans where it took place in relation to Sonic 2 and Sonic 3. some people argued it could be after Sonic 3 because Metal Sonic is the robotic Sonic that stuck around in later games when Sonic 2 and 3 had silver and Mecha Sonic then others argued that since tails is not in CD at all it probably was after Sonic 1 but before Sonic 2. the debate was finally laid to rest in the recently released Sonic Origins collection which established after almost 30 years that yes the official position is that Sonic CD takes place before Sonic 2 which means that for our timeline Sonic CD goes between Sonic 1 and the handheld version of Sonic 2. works for me now let's get back to where we left off at the end of Sonic 2. the Death Egg was taken out of the sky by Sonic and crashlands on a floating island known as Angel Island the impact causes the island to crash into the ocean the sole inhabitant of the island is Knuckles the Echidna the last member of the Echidna Clan who is responsible for guarding the master road which has the power to control the chaos emeralds and currently rests on Angel Island the doctor tricks Knuckles into thinking Sonic as his enemy and that he should help him get his space station back into the sky thus setting up Sonic 3. but this is an interesting game for many reasons in that it's two games Sonic 3 was released in early 1994 in order to promote Sonic's McDonald's Happy Meal toys Sonic 3 is only half the game as the second half was released at the end of 1994 and was called Sonic and Knuckles the cartridge of Sonic and Knuckles had a slot on top of it where you could put the Sonic 3 card inside it where it combines the two games into one Sonic 3 and Knuckles Sega seriously split this game in two for the sake of a McDonald's promotion you can see where their priorities were at this point over the actual art of making games but at least we have Sonic 3 and Knuckles the complete version of the game that is indeed the Canon version of the story Sonic and Tails follow the Death Egg to the island where they get ambushed by Knuckles who punches the chaos emeralds right out of Super Sonic and takes them back from you so now Sonic and Tails have to get the emeralds back while fighting Knuckles who has the home court advantage knowing every trapdoor to activate on the island at the end of the Sonic 3 half of the game Sonic stops the death egg from taking off once again but that just Begins the Sonic and Knuckles half of the story where we first see the Master Emerald and its ability to turn the chaos emeralds into the Super emeralds that transform Sonic into Hypersonic who's even more powerful than Super Sonic although don't get used to it Hypersonic is only in this game app after Sonic and Knuckles fight at Hidden Palace Zone Robotnik Reveals His true nature to Knuckles by stealing the Master Emerald and gets away on the Death Egg as knuckles realizes his mistake and teams up with Sonic and Tails leading them to Sky Sanctuary Zone where you contend with the elite egg Robo Max and Mecha Sonic as you climb up as fast as you can to catch the space station before it gets off-world culminating in Hypersonic chasing after the doctor to retrieve the Master Emerald and bringing it back to where it belongs having reached an understanding with Knuckles probably the coolest climax in a 16-bit 90s platformer if you ask me really going above and beyond to top the highs of Sonics 1 and 2 which I already complimented before but the fun doesn't have to stop there you can play as Knuckles in Sonic 3K his story takes place after the events of Sonic's campaign as a leftover egg Robo uses robotnik's abandoned machines as knuckles has to put a stop to it Mecha Sonic returns as the final boss of Knuckles story even being able to harness the power of the Master Emerald to go super himself Sonic arriving to save Knuckles and the Master Emerald on the tornado in the ending not much really happens here but still it's pretty cool that they didn't just make Knuckles playable in Sonic stages they gave him unique level segments and a storyline that follows the Sonic playthrough a very Cutting Edge game Sonic 3 and Knuckles was and as mentioned its spot in the timeline is right after Sonic 2. the next game I want to talk about is Sonic triple trouble released for the Game Gear in 1994. this game was a sequel to Sonic chaos but has a lot more material to discuss than that game for starters you have the cast of characters Sonic and Tails are playable again but as the name suggests Sonic has to face multiple threats besides Robotnik and yet another battle over the chaos emeralds first you have the new character a treasure hunter called well he's called fang the sniper in the Japanese version and knocked the weasel in the US version pick whichever one you prefer I guess as he's not a regularly featured character but then Knuckles is back as well having been tricked by Eggman into thinking is a villain out for the chaos emeralds again somehow and Metal Sonic has returned to cause Havoc as well having all these villains and set pieces in A Game Gear game was pretty ambitious I mean the previously mentioned Game Gear games were nothing like this in terms of scope But ultimately there wasn't much story in triple trouble just a lot of Concepts but luckily the story doesn't have to end there I know we're veering from headcanon into straight up Bannon here but I couldn't go with this whole segment without bringing attention to Sonic triple trouble having received a remake for those not in the know Sega is extremely lenient in allowing Sonic fans to make Sonic fan games for PC if those efforts are entirely non-profit over the last couple years Noah Copeland and his team were working on Sonic triple trouble 16-bit a from the ground up remake of triple trouble as if it were on the Sega Genesis and not the Game Gear I had to bring it up because this game was great fun from top to bottom but it becomes relevant in this video because it adds so much to the story of the game to fill in the blanks left behind by the original if you don't want what the new game does spoiled skip to this time stamp but if you don't care or have played it I just mentioned how knuckles in the original triple trouble just got tricked by the doctor into thinking Sonic was evil after the events of Sonic 3 which just doesn't make any sense triple trouble 16-bit rewriting it so that this doesn't happen as Sonic you battle Knuckles but you find out this was actually Metal Sonic disguising himself as knuckles setting up metal Sonic's ability to shapeshift which will be relevant lot of Sonic Heroes also allowing Knuckles to get through this adventure without looking like a everything culminates in a cool new supersonic final boss with a transformed Metal Sonic this being a fan game means it's entirely non-canon from an official standpoint however I wanted to bring it up because these additions are so cool and game-changing that I feel like you could headcan in this as the true plot of triple trouble and little would change although I should note triple trouble 16-bit shows that this takes place immediately after the events of Sonic's story in Sonic 3 down to the ending shot so if you take triple trouble 16 bit as the version of the game that's Canon to this timeline then that would mean that knuckles's story of Sonic 3 would have to take place after this but besides that small detail regardless of whatever version you're looking at Sonic triple trouble fits right in our timeline following Sonic 3 and Knuckles As for what's next well I'm tossing out knuckles's chaotix in the 32x for the time being and you'll see why later so we can skip that one games like Sonic drift don't have a story so they don't count and I guess that just leaves us with the Tails games yeah Tails was the star of two Game Gear games the first one I wish to discuss is Tails Adventure a puzzle platformer from 1995. nothing that happens here matters as Tails saves Cocoa Island from a group of birds using his inventions what does matter is that according to the U.S manual this plot occurs because Tales just happen to be doing some things solo without Sonic but the Japanese manual claims that this plot takes place before he ever met Sonic It also says that the chaos emeralds are said to lie on the island I find the Japanese version much more interesting since that would mean that it takes place before the first Sonic the Hedgehog as the chaos emeralds were active on south island by then and from that point forward Sonic and Robotnik were constantly fighting over them meaning that we have to go back and place Tails Adventure at the front of the timeline since we're following the Japanese lore for these cases where the localization team overhauled the plot completely now returning to where we left off in the main timeline tails's Sky Patrol was a Japanese exclusive game where you fly over obstacles as Tails it didn't come to the West until it was bundled in the Sonic Mega Collection Plus in 2004. not much to say about this one either other than that it actually is a part of the game's backstory that Tails went on his own for a bit and discovered an island under threat from a witch thus beginning this adventure we can plop this one right after triple trouble and we can use the fact that tails is on his own for a bit as a way to place a Sonic game that didn't feature Tails Sonic Labyrinth an isometric puzzle game on Game Gear where the goal is to slowly walk around these maps and find keys to move forward sounds pretty lame for a Sonic game right well I agree however I'll be upfront in saying that I think this game is one of the goofiest Sonic plots of all time Dr eggman's gotten fed up with Sonic and has decided it's time for the ultimate Revenge he has a robot get into Sonic's house and instead of just leaving behind a thermal detonator he replaces Sonic shoes with identical slow shoes which makes him Ultra slow for things I like to go through this maze to get the chaos emeralds the only Power capable of stopping these ludicrous shoes gotta hand it to the doctor he's nothing if not creative with Sonic and Robotnik not being entails of Skype Patrol and the two of them going through this ridiculous bout without tails it's safe to say that these two games can occur at the same time but now we're done with silly spin-off games we can return to a game that was at least supposed to be an important game Sonic 3D Blast for the Sega Genesis from 1996 the final Sonic game on the Genesis actually and the first game to be released on sega's next console the Sega Saturn both versions are the same in terms of gameplay but the Saturn version does he future better visual effects and backgrounds it was on the Genesis as well as including some CG cut scenes I have never liked this game the isometric view is a nightmare when trying to land in these platforms and the structure of rescuing flickies is pretty repetitive we aren't here to assess the quality of the game just placing it on a timeline the Genesis version actually includes a backstory and what the plot of the game is Dr Eggman has arrived in the Mysterious flicky Island where the birds the island was named after could supercharge his robots so Sonic Tails and Knuckles set out to stop this by that I mean Sonic does all the real work and the other two stand around charging you rings to enter special stages to get Chaos Emeralds while robotnik's on the loose that's pretty much all you get though there's an exclusive final boss fight you get when collecting the chaos emeralds but the point of the game is rescuing birds and that's exactly what's achieved by the end never said it was going to be a banger in terms of story and lore just that it wasn't a borderline joke game like Labyrinth although this game also got a 16-bit fan remake it doesn't add much to the plot besides references to past and future games so I won't go into it much like I did for triple trouble but I decided it was worth a mention but anyway you can put 3D Blast after Labyrinth and be done with that we're almost done with the 90s portion of the video as we now get to talk about the Game Gear tie-in Game to 3D Blast Sonic Blast this game sucks I mean it plays pretty poorly has levels that are either way too easy or too difficult to get around it's visually unappealing and is just no good but what I find so funny about this game is that it's pretty much the culmination of everything I've been saying about the regional differences between the games back in the 90s the manual of G Sonic the Japanese version of the game is this detailed scene on south island with dialogue and everything where Eggman announces his grand plan with the chaos emeralds as Sonic and Knuckles stood off to stop him but then the manual of Sonic Blast is just this utter crap about a new island appearing out of nowhere that's shaped like Eggman and Knuckles just happens to be around and guess we're gonna go stop him crazy how that's like a completely different story from the Japanese one localization teams back in the day really could just make up whatever they wanted it's Sonic Blast who's gonna notice the game has no story when you play it you just pick Sonic or Knuckles and play so yeah the manual can just make up whatever to justify it I still don't know why you'd make up something completely different from what was written before but still it happened let's just plop this one after 3D Blast although I suppose it doesn't really matter while I like to close part one of this video series in a more climactic note there isn't much of that to go around with this era of Sonic the main Sonic game on the Sega Saturn Sonic extreme got canceled so in the mid to late 90s Sonic was pretty much all spin-offs including the game we're discussing right now Sonic R this is a racing title developed by Travelers Tales who also developed 3D Blast and who later found Fame developing the Lego games Sonic R is pretty Bare Bones in terms of content as you race with Sonic Tails Knuckles Amy and Robotnik later unlocking Metal Sonic Super Sonic with the chaos emeralds and egg Robo and some new characters the Tails Doll and Metal Knuckles but you only get a handful of tracks to race on to the tune of some really out of place but very high quality songs in terms of story it's once again all in the manual as Sonic and his friends get mixed in with this Grand Prix for the chaos emeralds the usual fare and it can be safely placed after the blast games like I said I wish there was more to say at this point but the game is pretty simple and was released in a time period where Sega was having a lot of trouble getting a fully 3D Sonic game off the ground so all we got were games of this tier towards the end of the 90s but when they finally got it right it was quite the paradigm shift in the Sonic franchise [Music] [Music] Sonic Adventure from 1998 or 1999 if you live in the West the game was one of the main launch titles for the Sega Dreamcast and sought to make an impression big open 3D levels more characters full voice acting and cut scenes impressive set pieces and visual effects all the things you'd want to sell a console off of now pretty much all of these things are incredibly dated today but I get ahead of myself Sonic Adventure is make no mistake a sequel to the games that came before but was done in a fresh new way for starters the recurring cast was completely redesigned by artist Yuji uakawa giving each character longer limbs Treads at the bottom of their shoes and different colored irises surrounding their pupils Amy was just done over from scratch ditching her pink Sonic look in exchange for this these designs have been how the cast have continued to appear in every game going forward Sonic Adventure did a lot to unify the Sonic brand into a more cohesive whole as the last video can attest to despite the games being the same the story surrounding them was completely different in each region the U.S branch of Sonic having its own story and characters the European games and comics having their own and the same was true in Japan the Japanese Lauren's story was always the main one that Sonic Adventure was continuing but redesigning the cast was a good way to wipe the Slate clean and unify the whole series together although it wasn't an outright dismissal of everything that came before from other regions for example this was the game that confirmed that Dr eggman's real name was Dr Robotnik even though that was some of the localization team completely made up for Sonic 1. by Sonic Adventure 2 Eggman just starts calling himself that and the series progresses forward with the knowledge that Eggman isn't his real name even if that's what they're always going to call him as for what goes on in Sonic Adventure it's quite a lot we're looking past the terribly paced cut scenes janky animations and stilted line delivery this game adds a lot to the lore and story of Sonic Sonic 3 already had a big plot with Sonic's massive playthrough and then the knuckles campaign taking place after that Tails was playable in that game although he didn't get his own story if you were wondering why I didn't bring it up before Sonic Adventure doubles the playable roster with six character campaigns having a bunch of characters was just a platformer staple back then and Sonic Adventure was the Apex of that Sonic Adventure has One Singular story with each character campaign just showing that story from the perspective of that character you can only play Sonic at first but as he meets the rest of the cast you can then play their stories and see things unfold differently as cut scenes that occur with multiple characters present will have different dialogue and tones Eggman being more menacing and tells his playthrough compared to Sonics for example you need to play all six stories in order to have a proper understanding of everything going on and get the full scope which is a pretty interesting way to tell the story that was unique to this game back when it came out for example there's this part where all six characters are on the egg carrier Sonic constructs tails to get off the crashing Fortress with Amy while he finds Eggman which you then do in Sonic story but what you don't see here is that in Amy's story she says goodbye to Tails and goes to help her Bird friend find his family but then entails the story what happens at this moment is that the doctor tries nuking the entire city as Tails is left alone to stop the threat while Sonic is currently exploring an ancient temple in his story however I don't want to go full summary mode and mention every last plot Point as we'll be here a lot longer than we need to and this video is going to be pretty long as is so I'll just present the full plot in Broad Strokes Sonic 3 is Japanese Manuel mentioned the Echidna Clan had been mostly wiped out in an accident many generations ago and Sonic adventures plot revolves around that backstory chronologically Adventure 1 begins with knuckles's story as the doctor flies by Angel Island in his new Battleship the egg carrier using the guns to blast the Master Emerald from afar as inside the Master Emerald lies the water God chaos Eggman plots to use chaos in his quest to take over the world you can also see a spirit lived inside the emerald as well that escaped when the Master Emerald got shattered without the emerald holding it in the air Angel Island crashes into the ocean again as knuckles sets out to recover the pieces of the Master Emerald and bring the island back into the sky having no idea what this water monster business is about while Eggman demonstrates the true power of chaos to Sonic and Tails with each Chaos Emerald he absorbs chaos grows in strength so Sonic entails his campaigns both revolve around Gathering the emeralds to stop chaos from reaching his final form which just inadvertently brings the emeralds into the doctor's hands time and time again making chaos more and more powerful the two get separated when the tornado gets shot out of the sky Sonic running into Amy who's now involved with the story because she was protecting a flickie from one of eggman's robots the flicky having one of the emeralds that Eggman needs to power chaos obviously tails in the meantime finishes building the tornado 2 and finds Sonic as they need to rescue Amy who got caught and sent to the egg carrier where she runs into a robot named e102 gamma who upon seeing the flick he realizes that there's an innocent animal inside all of the Eggman mechs and with the encouragement of Amy gamma breaks away from Eggman and goes in a quest to free the animals trapped inside his fellow E-Series mechs including himself in the end after a battle against e101 beta apparently kids back in the day frequently requested to be able to shoot things in a Sonic game and the team's solution was by adding a playable Eggman robot that blows things away with his arm mounted gun so task accomplished I'd say the flickies inside of gamma and beta were actually the parents of Amy's flicky it all comes full circle like that outside of all this is the campaign of the new character Big the cat his story was intentionally meant to be pretty silly as big as a fisherman whose best friend is a frog who goes missing and you have to go save him while all these world-ending Stakes occur around him and the other characters story lines but it is still connected because chaos needs to absorb Froggy's tail in order to get his original form back Big's final boss fight is fishing froggy out of chaos 6 while Sonic has to fight the monster properly in his story even Biggs gameplay was totally different from everyone else Sonic Tails Knuckles Amy and Gamma all being some mix of action platforming but then Big's goal is genuinely just fishing for froggy across his four stages it's not particularly fun and is pretty unanimously considered the worst part of the game although I see why they did it they wanted a playable character who could show off the water technology of the Dreamcast up close but the actual handling of the fishing is so finicky that I'd rather not play it actually being the reason I couldn't beat this game for the longest time when I was a kid to the point where I usually skip it when playing this game again even if I'm more than capable of beating it now I'll start a new save file play the five main characters and then just go to an old save file it has the final story unlocked but speaking of which by the end of the six campaigns all the characters have their goals achieved Tales haven't gained a bit of confidence in stopping eggman's missile Threat by himself Sonic then finding eggman's base and beating him again Knuckles Gathering all the pieces of the Master Emerald and bringing Angel Island back into the sky aiming having helped the bird find his family gamma freed the E-Series robots and big rescued froggy but there was one overarching plot that surrounded each character's story at seemingly random moments the spirit that lived inside the emerald drags each character into a flashback of the Echidna tribe from centuries ago these are presented out of order but the important points are that the echidnas were warriors that conquered as much land as possible wanted to take the power of the Master Emerald for themselves despite the protest of Tikal The Village Chief's daughter Tikal was familiar with the Master Emerald and the colony of Chao that lived alongside it the Chow are tiny creatures that the player can raise and take care of in the main game since Sonic Team wanted to include a virtual pet simulator alongside all the other mechanics in this game but anyway the Chao and the Master Emerald were guarded by chaos who was an evolved Chao himself the echidnos tried raiding the Shrine of the Master Emerald only be faced with chaos who transformed into his ultimate form Perfect Chaos then wiped out the echidnas this being depicted in a mural that Sonic finds at the end of the stage Lost World chaos was was stopped because takal knew the incantation to use the power of the emerald and sealed herself and Chaos inside of it to stop the Carnage history repeating itself is the main threat of the story as Eggman believes he can use the power of Perfect Chaos to rule the world once all six stories are complete you unlock the last story where chaos enacts his true plan after he was assumed defeated following the end of Knuckles story Gathering the seven emeralds once again to become Perfect Chaos and destroy the world out of Vengeance for what happened to the Chao centuries ago destroying the entire city in a tsunami in the process takal reveals herself as the spirit pleading with Sonic and friends to steal chaos in the Master Emerald again but Sonic protests this will only keep the cycle going and cause this to happen again someday instead they can neutralize this form of chaos by defeating it turning into supersonic for the final boss to the tune of open your heart from crush 40. the band that would Supply The Rock theme Tunes the Sonic series would adopt from this point forward another precedent set by this game hello Sonic's plan actually works reverting chaos back to his base form giving to Carl the chance to show him that the Chow have thrived in the generation since that initial incident putting chaos at peace allowing the two of them to go on to the afterlife while the game ends with Sonic already moving on to the next adventure and with the entire city of Station Square leveled by Perfect Chaos Tails gives his assessment of the damages alsoil that ends well right thus ending Sonic Adventure only one game into the 3D era and they've already gone crazy with the plot and details gotta respect the effort I really do Sonic Adventure as I said laid the groundwork for the series to run on going forward this being the first game where a villain other than Eggman was the final boss the first game with these new designs and music these voices for the characters that would stick around for the next five years worth of games and this approach to storytelling that would also stick around for almost every single game discussed in this video so yeah it goes without saying that this one is a big deal in the franchise successfully kicking off the launch of the Dreamcast and remaining its highest selling game meaning the dev team achieved everything they set out to do with this one and from the perspective of our timeline it's the very next game after Sonic R now the next Sonic game released was Sonic pocket adventure for the Neo Geo Pocket color this game is famous being the only Sonic game to get a perfect 10 out of 10 rating from IGN it's a meme at this point even though it's actually perfectly understandable why this is I mean it was a handheld Sonic game that pretty Faithfully reconstructed the classic Sonic gameplay much better than the prior era of Game Gear games did people like to say this game takes place before Sonic Adventure because of the fact that in it you can see Eggman going from his classic design into his modern outfit by the end however I'm going to say this game is non-canon that's simply because of the rule that games with no story are not Canon by default seriously I looked it up the game includes no coherent story and the manual on all regions also offers nothing on that the game was more about the gameplay than ever in a Sonic platformer it technically houses no story and because of that we have nothing to work with other than Eggman changing jackets so I'm just gonna say it's non-canon and move on to the next game released Sonic Shuffle which dropped on the Dreamcast in 2000. this game was a pretty Shameless Mario Party clone even down to the fact that Sega had contracted hudsonsoft the developers of Mario Party to make Sonic Shuffle really it's an excuse to have a Sonic party game but it got poor reception compared to the games it was to put it nicely inspired by this one is incredibly dull and mediocre but in typical Sonic spin-off fashion it does include a storyline nothing that happens here matters to the overall series but since it does include a story I thought I'd mention in it it revolves around Sonic Tails Knuckles and Amy being pulled into a place called imaginary world in another dimension where dreams and reality coexist they were brought here by Lumina flow light who tells the heroes to recover the precious stones from a villain called void and save imaginary world not gonna lie despite having played this game for my review on it two years ago I had to consult the Sonic fan Wiki to even remember what happened here once more I do appreciate it having a story and all but it's got no bearing on anything safely placed after Sonic Adventure 1 with little consequence with those filler games out of the way we can move on to a much more important subject Sonic Adventure 2. if the first Sonic Adventure built the foundation for the 2000s of Sonic I'd say Sonic Adventure 2 was where a lot of the tropes and precedents were set in stone to start out I think it's important to note that the context Sonic Adventure 2 was made from was much different than the first game sa-1 was developed after Sega had failed to get 3D Sonic off the ground on the Sega Saturn they had to go big or go home to show that Sonic was still at the top of the pile after four years that a main Series game and showed the Dreamcast meant business however sa2 was much different this this game was released back in June of 2001 and the Dreamcast was on its last legs the Dreamcast is a pretty cool console and received praise almost across the board however sega's mismanagement of the Genesis add-ons in the early 90s and the Saturn in the mid 90s just made them lose trust with consumers especially when Sony's Playstation came out in 1995 and became a dominating force in the industry the Dreamcast had seen some Niche success but by the release of the PlayStation 2 in 2000 the console that Still Remains to this day the most successful to ever release the Dreamcast had no chance of staying competitive against a juggernaut like the PS2 so by the time sa2 was coming out production of Dreamcast systems was already discontinued and this was the last major game Sega was doing on it a game made by a team of like 10 people compared to the 50 or so staff members on sa-1 2001 was also significant for the Sonic series because that meant had been 10 years since Sonic the Hedgehog debuted in the Genesis sa2 was the Swan Song of the Dreamcast and the 10th anniversary of the franchise so they once again went all out with this one sa1 had six playable characters with their own unique stage objectives and goals in sa2 you still have to pick six playable characters but they picked the three best formulas from sa1 Sonic Speed levels knuckles as treasure hunting levels and Gamma shooting stages and expanded the complexity of each one dividing the cast into two teams sa2 has two campaigns where you see how the story unfolds from each team's perspective where you cycle between the three gameplay Styles in both Stories the hero Side Story with Sonic Tails and Knuckles against the Dark Side Story Dr Eggman and his first playable appearance alongside two newcomers Rouge the Bat and of course Shadow the Hedgehog who is one of the most important figures I'm going to be talking about throughout the next hour and some odd minutes the plot begins in the Dark Side Story as Dr Eggman is raiding a military base on Prison Island this section of the military goes by gun or Guardian units of Nations or just gun as I'm gonna call them the doctor uncovered the Diary of his grandfather Professor Gerald Robotnik who was a scientific genius in his own right the professor's diary claims that an important piece of research was shut down by gun and locked away on Prison Islands just waiting to be set free and that was Shadow the Hedgehog the alt ultimate life form capable of using Chaos Emerald energy in a way never before seen mainly through his power Chaos Control which allows him to teleport around at light speed Shadow instructs the doctor to meet him on board the space Colony Arc a research station above the planet's atmosphere where Professor Gerald once worked the arc came equipped with a giant laser called the eclipse cannon that the doctor can use to hold the world hostage and finally take over however it needs the seven Chaos Emeralds to be fully activated Shadow is motivated by the fact that 50 years ago when he was created his best friend in the Arc was Maria Robotnik the professor's granddaughter and eggman's cousin although I'm not sure if he knows about her he doesn't seem to throughout the entire story as I was saying Maria suffered from a terminal disease and the professor created the ultimate life form an immortal being impervious to ailments in the hope of finding a cure for Maria but when Gunn found out about how powerful Shadow could be when used against them they raided the ark killing most of the researchers and that death toll included Maria Shadow was jettisoned from The Arc by Maria before her death and all he remembers from this is that he made a promise to get revenge upon the Earth for doing this to her only he was found and stealed Away by gun so now 50 years later he's helping Dr Eggman with his Eclipse Cannon scheme the heroes get involved in this story because Shadow made quite a scene blast into the police and military when stealing a Chaos Emerald and it's assumed that Sonic is the super fast hedgehog responsible and is promptly arrested with minimal evidence busting out of captivity beginning the hero Side Story freeze what do you think you're doing get that Hedgehog talk about low budget flights no food or movies I'm out I like running better running into Shadow later and realizing that Shadow's actions are probably why he's in trouble as he has quickly recaptured and sent to prison Island only for Tales to bust him out with the help of Amy as the hero set out to stop eggman's scheme and avoid gun at the same time meanwhile Knuckles is fighting over the Master Emerald with a thief who stole it named Rouge the Bat a fellow treasure hunter Knuckles shattering the Master Emerald himself knowing he can collect the pieces and bring it back together later which brings him into the hero side plot and Rouge is also a spy working for the president who joins Dr Eggman and Shadow in the hopes of getting access to the top secret project Shadow information now with all that set up it must be said that in many ways sa2's story feels rushed and that's probably because it was team of 10 people like I said making a game on a dead console I think many things probably stopped at the conceptual stage or just got cut for time purposes but to list a few examples Sonic being mistaken for shadow doesn't really make any sense as they don't even look alike I personally believe this was a plot point that developed way earlier in development back when Shadow's design was still meant to be a Sonic look-alike the closest match to the Hedgehog that any Sonic rival had ever been but they eventually settled on the iconic final design of shadow that just barely resembles Sonic but then you have was being held in stasis by a gun for 50 years so they already know who Shadow is so why are they chasing Sonic for the crimes of Shadow when they already know Eggman busted Shadow out only the purest of headcanon could explain that one away also Rouge is a spy for the president and gun answers to the president but Rouge still has to fight gun while working with the doctor and guns seemingly isn't in on the plan as Rouge helps Eggman and Shadow steal three chaos emeralds from prison Island and use them to blow up the moon with the eclipse Cannon as a demonstration of power to the people of Earth I guess the president really needed that project Shadow data by any means necessary the details get pretty messy here in a way they almost never did back in Sonic Adventure 1. however this has been stopped sa2 from being one of if not the most iconic Sonic plot of all time and that's because of how cool the whole thing is I mean the back of the box says it all fight to either save the world or conquer it two sides where each character on the hero side as a direct opponent On the Dark Side team that sense of Yin and Yang being present throughout the entire game the fans get to play as Dr Eggman for the first time in a in game as you see he means business when he's not getting beat by Sonic on the regular blowing away gun mechs like it's nothing he has some of my favorite non-speed stages in the game sa2 gives more backstory on the doctor in general showing his extended family and how that history has led to the villain he is now the Dark Side Story introducing two Mainstay Sonic characters that integrate with the main cast really well both in how they react to characters we already know Shadow being more powerful and driven than Knuckles or metal Sonic ever were challenging Sonic in a new way and Rouge bring out a competitive side of Knuckles as they fight over the Master Emerald pieces throughout the game but then they also are interesting characters in how they relate to each other Shadow and Eggman never fully trusting her but needing her skills to gather more emeralds working together to pull off a big Chaos Emerald Heist on Prison island in the middle of the story where Rouge actually gets trapped inside the Vault while the bombs are set to go off and shadow goes back to savor with Chaos Control rationalizing to her that he was only saving the emeralds but the audience knows he felt bad after what happened to Maria decades ago maybe there's more to Shadow than just getting revenge complex stuff perhaps not but like sa1 it's just a level of story that most Platformers did not bother with back then especially as this game predated all the amazing boundary breaking games that would release in the PS2 in the years that followed this game ones that made it pretty clear how dated sa2 was in terms of animation and voice acting and sound mixing my God [Music] the movie right here I like running back but still it's a cool game one that has a great climax all story points Converge on the space Colony Arc as Eggman has six of the emeralds inside the eclipse Cannon the heroes plan on using a fake Emerald that Tails created by studying a real one to overload the eclipse Cannon and shut it down but in the Dark Side Story you see Eggman detect two emeralds on radar meaning the heroes obviously have a fake one leading to what's agreed on by most people as the best scene in the game as Eggman holds Amy at gunpoint in exchange for the emerald Sonic and Tails think this is the perfect way to trick him with the fake Emerald but he traps Sonic inside the Escape pod rigged to explode and goads Tails in revealing it's a fake before launching Sonic to his death ranks pretty high to this day for one of the best scenes of Eggman as a villain but Sonic escapes by using the limited power of the fake Emerald to use Chaos Control after seeing Shadow do it earlier making one final dash for the cannon to use the fake Emerald to shut it down at that moment Shadow confronts Rouge about her true Allegiance before Rouge instead addresses the fact that the Project's Shadow data reveals a true ultimate life form that came before him here are the other project call of the ultimate life form but if this picture is of the real ultimate life form named Shadow then exactly who or what is standing in front of me and that everything he knows might not be true his memory might have been tampered with if you want to live leave the chaos emeralds where they are the fake Emerald is good enough for you do you actually believe that you're the real Shadow no doubt even your memories might not be real you know even if my memories are not real it's still me shadow and I will fulfill my promise to Maria that matters to me Sonic and Shadow having a final battle on the bottom of the arc the Victor depends on which story you play but it doesn't really matter because Eggman in his final fight with Tails snags the real emerald and uses it in what he thinks this is finally taking over the world but this only activates Professor Gerald's true plan all seven emeralds being in the cannon causes the ark to crash down to earth the impact will destroy the planet Gerald's final message then being played as after the arc raid he was still forced to work for gun and this is when he discovered Maria had died and thus he programmed the ark to destroy the Earth with all seven emeralds and did reprogram Shadow's mind with the plan and false memories of Maria's want for Revenge to make it happen whenever someone awakens Shadow when gun caught wind of this he was then put to death but all the pieces were in place for his plan to be achieved the setup for the final story is that Sonic Tails Knuckles Rouge and Dr Eggman team up to reach the core of the Ark to use the Master Emerald to stop the powers of the chaos emeralds thus stopping the ark from colliding with Earth the core of the Ark is a fully rebuilt Shrine of the Master Emerald as the professor was an avid researcher of ancient Echidna culture even creating an army of water beings called artificial chaos obviously based on the creature that destroyed the echidnas fun fact it's also speculated by fans that the reason the ultimate life forms final design was a three foot tall Hedgehog was because of the mural on Angel Island the players saw while fighting Knuckles and hidden Palace Zone back in Sonic 3. the mural depicted hypersonic's battle with the doctor to recover the Master Emerald that happened at the end of that game there has never been an in-universe source that backs that up but it's a fan theory that does exist with nothing outright contradicting it speaking of Shadow he's at peace at the end of the world soon coming but Amy tries getting through to him about how people deserve a chance to live and be happy which triggers Shadow's true memories of Maria as she in her last moments asked Shadow to bring hope to humanity which makes Shadow realize the Colossal mistake he's made as he rushes off to help Sonic and Knuckles who are face down by the original ultimate life form the bio lizard Shadow's sudden realization of his true memories is another moment that feels kind of rushed to me to be fair it was set up earlier that shadow had a foggy memory of Maria wishing for him to destroy everything and it was also set up that his memories might be altered but it's just lucky that Amy happened to say the exact thing Maria really said or else I guess the heroes wouldn't have been able to save the day but as I was saying before this game makes you forget about that sort of thing with cool Unforgettable moments Shadow battling the bio lizard is the final challenge of the game while Knuckles and Sonic try using the Master Emerald to stop the chaos emeralds which does work but the bio lizard uses Chaos Control to fuse with the station itself to force its collision with Earth the professor really thought of everything here and in the true final boss fight Sonic and Shadow use the chaos are most to become Supersonic and Super Shadow to defeat the Prototype of the ultimate life form in the final minutes before the Earth is destroyed now I have said that sa2 is one of the most fondly remembered Sonic plots throughout this whole segment but I think it's fair to say that this is the most beloved Sonic finale of all time start with the fact that it's kind of a tough boss as you trade between Supersonic and Super Shadow to land blows in the monster's weak spots and then the moment is built up through all this dialogue you hear as these characters who have spent most of the game at each other's throats are now altogether rooting for Sonic and Shadow to save the day stop him now everyone here is rooting for you good luck and get in trouble you can do it Sonic I think I've discovered what the ultimate life form is it might be you Shadow I understand you're unstoppable let's destroy this creature now everyone is waiting for us back on Earth then there's the main theme of the game live and learn from Crush 40 blasting in the background at full volume this song basically became the anthem of the Sonic franchise for the next 10 years because if it's being associated with this final boss every time Crush 40 plays this song live in fact all the fans in the audience immediately go crazy and sing to every single word [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign they even closed the Sonic 30th Anniversary Symphony concert to this song it was a legendary moment I saw it live wish it could have been in person but what can you do in this day and age to sum up the whole thing Flaws and All with sa2 story it was just iconic can't explain in any way beyond that the ending is also iconic as Supersonic and Super Shadow managed to use Chaos Control to warp The Colony back to its starting position thus saving the Earth but this also uses up all of Shadow's power as he begins to fall to the Earth and Sonic was unable to save him in time Shadow sacrificed himself to save the world like Maria wanted the characters feel bittersweet in the end regarding Shadow's death even Eggman gets a moment to reflect on how his entire life was all about being a great scientist like his grandfather but his grandfather really planned on wiping out the entire Earth including him Tails continues his streak of saying something nonsensical after a tragic moment though did he really mean to destroy us I don't know but what I do know is we all did it together yeah whatever that's supposed to mean but in the end the group goes home the Game ending with this shot of the Ark in space to the tune of this piano piece that then transitions to live and learn to properly end the game I wasn't kidding when saying Sonic Adventure 2 set the stage for the Sonic series for the foreseeable future the legacy of Shadow the Hedgehog and the designs of Professor Gerald Robotnik remains Central to numerous Sonic games going forward however back when Adventure 2 came out it hit so hard partially because I think people couldn't be sure what was next for Sonic this was the Brand's 10th anniversary but now that sega's done making consoles does this mean that this is the last Sonic game if so they like I said went out with a bang although no while the Dreamcast was indeed done this was not the last Sonic game not even close later in 2001 Sonic Adventure 2 which sold poorly on Dreamcast because of the status of the console got re-released on the new Nintendo GameCube console as Sonic Adventure 2 battle this introduced a new generation to Sonic which only further cemented sa2 as a sort of foundation for the brand sowing over a million copies eventually leading to a GameCube version of sa1 called Sonic Adventure DX director's Cut say that 17 times fast as Sega grew the brand even more with a new cartoon show Sonic X which debuted on four kids in 2003. this being how I first discovered Sonic Sonic xium did full episode arcs based on the events of Sonic Adventure 1 and Sonic Adventure 2. Sega also made their backlog accessible to this new generation of kids by re-releasing the games of the 90s via the Sonic Mega Collection this PS2 version being the first time I played a Sonic game even though I was absolutely terrible at it the new age of Sonic was fully in gear as all games going forward would be developed on all platforms the ones at the time being Sony's Playstation 2 and Nintendo's GameCube and the new Xbox from Microsoft but we won't get into those games quite yet as they also gave attention to Nintendo's handheld the Game Boy Advance the GBA was home to many games that replicated the gameplay that was popular in the early 90s the Mario Zelda and Metroid games going to show that already but Sega put their hat in that ring with Sonic Advance which first released on the GBA in late 2001. with this still being a timeline video we'll just focus on this Game's plot in that regard Advance was going all the way back to the days of Sonic 1 where you didn't really get much story at all something the series had earned the right to since I mean have you seen how long this video is just by summarizing the plots of Adventure 1 and adventure 2. in this game you pick Sonic Tails Knuckles or Amy and play through several zones to stop Eggman from using the chaos emeralds to take over the world and also free trapped animals from being turned into robots seriously the same as Sonic 1 just only with more characters playable the only thing in the game that counts as a story would be that at the end of Angel Island Zone towards the end of the game your selected character will battle Mecca Knuckles not to be confused with Metal Knuckles from Sonic R though the game just drops this guy in with little Fanfare as you progress to the final stage if you collect all the chaos emeralds Sonic will go super after the x-zone boss and then progress to the Moon zone for a true final boss fight but that's about it so that might make it seem like placing the game on a timeline is simple but it's actually that conversation where things get the most interesting for Advance actually the plot is nothing but there's one detail that changes it from going right after sa2 to before remember how in Sonic Adventure 1 Sonic and Tails boarded the tornado to chase after the egg carrier which got shot down Tails then returned with a tornado 2 that came with a battle mode this detail is definitely something that games remembered as the tornado 2 returned in Sonic Adventure 2 as Tails as mechwalker but Sonic Advance shows the original Red Tornado appearing exactly as it did in sa-1 as Tales find Sonic following the moon Zone battle which means that Sonic Advance brings us backwards in the timeline and takes place between Sonic R and Sonic Adventure it sounds so small but it's there and the tornado 2 is shown in Sonic Advance 3 which means it shouldn't be taken as some kind of accident now I'm sure you're thinking doesn't Amy's inclusion throw a wrench into this placement of mine good question hypothetical viewer in Sonic Adventure 1 Amy says she hasn't seen Sonic in a while reminiscing about the days of Sonic CD but that's the thing advance having no cutscenes has got me thinking that every playthrough besides Sonic is a mere what-if scenario like tails is in Sonic 3. Sonics is the only Canon one as he is the only only character that goes to the moon Zone and even then while Amy is shown in the ending here she technically never sees Sonic here so nothing with sa1 is contradicted especially since Sonic R showed that Amy still interacted with the regular cast from time to time just was never outright included in Adventures until Sonic Adventure then becoming a regular member of the cast starting in Sonic Adventure 2. so with that said I think I've covered my bases and why this game takes place before Sonic Adventure 1. truly it seems weird to put a game that came after sa1 had restructured the series before it on the timeline but I think it makes sense now on that note Sonic Advance got two sequels Sonic Advance 2 is a game that also has minimal story but three is a bit more complicated so we'll return to it later Advance 2 is largely the same stop Eggman from capturing animals routine however Advanced 2 does have more meat on its bones in the first game this game includes tiny cutscenes in Sonic's playthrough as we see him introduced to a new character Cream the Rabbit and her pet she is the Chow these two were created for their appearance in Sonic Heroes the next main console game but debuted earlier in Sonic Advance 2. Korean his mother vanilla was captured by Eggman as cream tried to save her herself but was caught and saved by Sonic at the start of his story Sonic also rescues Tails later in the story and then fights Knuckles who was somehow tricked by Eggman into fighting Sonic yet again for little justification I mean at least in triple trouble we could just look to the fan remake to rewrite it and then in Sonic Adventure 1 Knuckles fight Sonic not because he trusts anything Eggman had to say but because Eggman gave him the idea that Sonic was looking for emeralds and then he saw Sonic with one thinking it was a Master Emerald piece setting up Eggman to swoop in and steal it and feed it to chaos here no such justification for the red Echidna while it would be easy to say that Sonic's playthrough is once again the only Cannon run of Sonic Advance 2. as this game operates like the first game where Sonic uses the seven emeralds to fight the true final boss but then I noticed something at the end of the game vanilla is recaptured by Eggman and then Sonic goes Super to follow him into outer space and then saving vanilla for real this time however Sonic never saved her in his main campaign that only happened at the end of cream's playthrough so maybe you could disregard Tails and Knuckles as they have no bearing on this gamepad their cutscenes with Sonic but in cream's cutscene she's frustrated that Sonic just tells her to stay put so you could then say that Sonic and cream stories are both Canon to the game not impossible since cheese the Chao is an impervious boss killing demigod it seems so I can buy into that it's the only way to make sense of all the events here also Amy is not a part of the story at all in Sonic Advance 2. as she gets unlocked as a playable character for fully completing the entire game but that's it and if we were to go with the idea that Amy wasn't a regular member of the crew until her campaign of Adventure 1 then that would be an easy reason to say that Sonic Advance 2 takes place after the first game and before Adventure 1. as for Advance 3 like I said that game is different from the first two so we can save it for later so instead let's return to the main series and see what did happen following adventure 2. Sonic Hero is released for the PS2 Xbox GameCube and PC in 2003 in Japan in early 2004 for every other region this game so that do things differently from the adventure titles as those games focused heavily on the story and revolving the gameplay around the story Sonic Heroes are trying to the old games the playable roster was expanded to include 12 Heroes but they're divided into four teams of three each of the four teams plays pretty much the exact same as one another and play the exact same stages in the exact same order and even then while each team has three characters the gameplay is pretty much the adventure Sonic gameplay but with the gimmick that you trade from one character to another for specific tasks each team has a speed type character a flight type character and a power type character the first time the Sonic series divided its cast into these categories and continued to do so in several games after this while Heroes put the cutscenes firmly in the back seat compared to the adventure games there's still a lot to go over here the first campaign you'll probably try out is team Sonics consisting of Sonic Tails and Knuckles guest Tails and Knuckles are so used to this ego Maniac by now or else I'd imagine the name team Sonic would have gotten vetoed their Story begins with Tails and Knuckles finding Sonic to alert him that Dr Eggman has sent on an ominous letter saying that he's going to conquer the world in just three days and if they want to stop him they better try it now so they set out to do just that this is the format that every team follows a basic intro cut scene that establishes what the team is trying to do and then in the levels you see them interact with one another team Rose consists of Amy cream and big returning from sa-1 Amy is trying to find Sonic like always but things have gotten mysterious as Cheese's brother chocolate was abducted as was froggy a news clipping showing Sonic having taken them both so Amy cream and big set out to rescue them and find what Sonic is up to and cheese is there too but he doesn't count as a team member I guess then you have Team chaotix consisting of Espio the Chameleon Charmy B and Vector the Crocodile this is why I skipped over knuckles as chaotix in part one these three characters debuted in that game but when promoting Sonic Heroes head of Sonic Team Takashi Azuka claimed they weren't really bringing back the chaotics as we knew them instead they were taking the characters from the 32x game and rebooting them for the main series The chaotic's not really having any goal or Duty that was established in the 32x game so the ultimate continuity Comics had to just make that part up back in the 90s but Sonic Heroes as I said redesigned the team and turned the trio into a struggling detective agency that finally gets work as a mysterious client claims he's in dire need of their service services and can pay handsomely so they've set out do the job things get a little more complicated with team dark story which begins with Rouge the Bat infiltrating eggman's base to find some secret treasure he's hiding and what she finds is Shadow the Hedgehog and stasis having apparently survived his fall from Sonic Adventure 2. originally Shadow was supposed to stay dead following sa2 but he exploded in popularity after that game and people wanted more of him so he came back in Sonic Heroes however Shadow can't remember anything that happened to him before now that brought him to this point Shadow's pod was being guarded by e-123 Omega the final member of the E-Series robots Eggman put Omega in charge of guarding Shadow but feels this was a waste of his power and he's now dead set on destroying the Eggman Empire Rouge realizes this is the perfect Alliance she wants to find that treasure that the doctor is hiding Shadow needs to learn his past and Omega wants to kill Eggman so they can accomplish all three of these tasks together what begins is an unlikely Alliance becomes a powerful team of Misfit friends that's still popular with fans to this very day team dark story has the most going on from level to level first Shadow wants to find out from Eggman why he was in that base and what happened which Rouge decides not to just say for some reason but then for Zo and Zen you see all these capsules that are like the ones Shadow was found in at the start the cut scene at the end shows that robotic Shadows are being mass produced something confirmed by the end of the story this Shadow not knowing if he's the real deal or a fake something still not said by the end of the game being the first time a Sonic game had ended with an unresolved plot thread that later games could expand upon Sonic Heroes is more laid-back approach to storytelling does lead to some massive missed opportunities as team Sonic for example doesn't have much of a reaction to Shadow still being alive it's just like oh hey it's Shadow anyway this is also the beginning of the game's forcing really contrived situations that cause characters to fight each other because the idea of character battles came before the justification for them in this game like when team Rose finds team Sonic and Amy's all like well time for us to get married Sonic and he's like well I guess I'm gonna have to throw you off this building now marriage no way but still Heroes manages to work in a lot of the franchises lore when you get towards the end of the game game four zones and it's revealed to the audience that they aren't actually fighting Eggman in this but instead Metal Sonic in Disguise he hasn't really done anything besides cameos and Sonic CD but he's back and he really means business in this one with his new form Neo Metal Sonic and with an ability to shape-shift into other people and produce clones of himself to battle all the teams at once I think absorbing the data of Team Sonic at the end of zone four he pretended to be Sonic to capture chocola and froggy and the reason can be heard in the ending of Team Rose's story data has been copied Metal Sonic needed that ciao and froggy because they contain Remnant data of chaos the child because chaos was himself a mutated Chao and froggy because chaos had absorbed him back in sa1 and by happenstance Metal Sonic was also able to NAB the powers of the ultimate life form in team dark story [Music] at the end of Team chaotix's playthrough it's revealed that their mystery client was Dr Eggman who sent the message out for their help because Metal Sonic after spending game after game on the sidelines had crafted his master plan to destroy Sonic and crew once and for all and take over the world himself tossing his former master in jail while he did it team chaotix otherwise had nothing to do with the story which is why Metal Sonic didn't scan any of their data throughout their playthrough the doctor doesn't get a chance to explain any of that until after the chaotix beat the crap out of him for not having the money they were promised as soon as I conquer the world I will pay you some nerd property of God we've been had just wait a minute just listen to me [Music] [Applause] I figured I'd play that because I thought it was funny as I was saying Metal Sonic has assembled all this data from Sonic Tails Knuckles chaos and Shadow to become the Metal Overlord a giant Abomination that has enough power to destroy the world several times over the only hope the characters have is with the chaos emeralds like always in order to reach the last story of Sonic Heroes you need to complete all four team campaigns they needed to collect the seven emeralds in the special stages you can do this as any team team Rose stages being the shortest so it's the easiest to get the special stages as them but for this run I figured I'd do something interesting and new in the final cut scene before battling Metal Sonic each team has different emeralds but they have all seven combined I looked at this and decided to find out what special stages were completed in Canon by what teams since this is a timeline video after all here were the results team Sonic has the blue Emerald Team Dark has the green and silver ones team Rose is the yellow and purple ones and chaotix is the teal and red ones so if you wanted to do a Canon playthrough of Sonic Heroes you need to do special stages 1 and 4 as Team Dark stage two is team Sonic three and six for Rose and five and seven for chaotix thought that would be an interesting detail to point out for anyone curious back to the story I find metal Sonic pretty interesting in this one having not had any characterization Beyond being cold and lifeless in Sonic CD now that he has dialogue we hear his motivations he did all this because Metal Sonic was built in the image of Sonic but after being beaten so easily in Sonic CD he's become afraid in a way of being nothing but an inferior robot copy of Sonic overthrowing his master and trying to take over the world to settle it forever destroy you but I can never see never see that is why I'll Transform my own body with my own hands you actually thought you could defeat Me by transforming into a monster but that was the past now you're nothing but a speck of just two means see me as I am no longer Afraid of Anything But as the game claims through cheesy dialogue Metal Sonic might have copied all that data but what he could never copy was the power of these 12 characters teaming up and battling him all at once as Sonic turns Super once more alongside super powered Tails and Knuckles who don't get new forms to show it but they defeat metal Sonic's new form once and for all just the same Metal Sonic reverts back to his base form not sure why he can't beat Sonic and it's like I said he just didn't have the teamwork that the whole game was based around at his side as the characters one by one start to depart with the day clearly saved except for the chaotix they still want that paycheck yes that's it for this case yes so but why God that's limbo [Music] all right our next adventure awaits us so there's no time to waste yeah we're Sonic Heroes which ends Sonic Heroes as mentioned not a super complex story compared to the adventure games but I feel they injected just the right amount of lore and character moments that still make it feel like the next step for the series taking place after Sonic Adventure 2 even if it's not as Grand or game changing so from here there are a couple of different routes to explore Sonic battle released the same day as Sonic Heroes in the west Sonic Advance 3 released a few months later but the next main game was one called Shadow the Hedgehog which one shall we discuss first well I'm going to go over Shadow the Hedgehog those not in the gnome might find themselves wondering how the game following the lighthearted and cheesy Sonic Heroes wound up being this and that's pretty simple the early 2000s saw a massive shift in the gaming industry where mature games are the most popular ones now Sonic team in what I'd say their first thoroughly transparent attempt at replicating some popular format that worked for others significantly better games released out of the Hedgehog in 2005 for PS2 Xbox and GameCube Sonic himself might not be the best fit for a game that's gimmick was going all hardcore so why not take the popularity of Shadow and use that as a springboard for that idea if that intro didn't give it away Shadow the Hedgehog is not a game I hold in high esteem despite the fact that it was the first 3D Sonic game I ever played it is not a game I enjoy playing now because of all the reasons I mentioned in my review of it from 2020. it doesn't control well its structure is the most repetitive of all the 3D Sonic games and the writing is laughably try hard nonsensical at the same time a Chaos Emerald you've gotta be kidding me guys this is like taking candy from a baby which is fine by me side note this was also the first major English recast in the games Shadow the Hedgehog brings in the voices from the Sonic X show for each character replacing the entire cast that debuted in Sonic Adventure you get used to it after a while however none of that matters for this video because something doesn't have to be good to be a Canon part of the Saga so what was Shadow the Hedgehog all about well as you'd recall Sonic Heroes ended with it still being a mystery as to whether or not Shadow was the real Shadow from Adventure 2 or a robotic copy of him I think there's plenty of evidence in Heroes that supported him being the real deal for one his personality was intact when bantering with Rouge and Omega and even Sonic despite his fractured memory I might as well go look for that Master Emerald since that irritating Echidna is here some things never change dude what are you saying and Eggman also thought it was important enough to leave a robot as powerful as Omega to guard this Shadow separate from all those other clones being mass produced but regardless the shadow game arrived a year later to answer all the questions but in a bizarre fashion Shadow was pretty clearly a good person at heart just very misguided in essay too for reasons I went into Sonic Heroes showing that he's not evil at all Shadow the Hedgehog the game used the fact that shadow is mostly known as an anti-hero combined with his Amnesia to tell this story that was marketed around choosing whether or not Shadow was going to be a hero a villain or neither which I just find to be a misuse of his character but here's how it goes every playthrough of Shadow begins at the level westopolis where an army of evil aliens called the black arms have invaded the Earth and their leader black Doom claims to know who Shadow is and that he owes them the chaos emeralds in the stage Shadow must either help black Doom Wipe Out the gun troops find the Chaos Emerald for himself or help Sonic fend off the black arms doing one of these three things will take you to a different stage where the story plays out completely differently depending on what you do as you eventually reach one of the six final levels where you have to definitively pick a hero Mission or a dark mission where you get one of two endings from that stage creating a total of 10 possible endings writing it out like that sounds pretty cool but in practice the issue with Shadow is that the writing just isn't there to back any of it up each stage feels separate and disconnected from what choices you've made before creating a very disjointed plot where it's impossible to see all the major events in one playthrough but then all the major events are Canon at the same time meaning that I can't really tell you what the most Canon path of Shadow is as there really isn't one but I'll go over what important bullet points are contained within the campaign of Shadow the Hedgehog I already mentioned that black Doom knows who shot is and has a past with him that even the audience is not aware of but then you have this newly introduced commander of gun who has a vendetta against Shadow for a mysterious reason that isn't revealed until you reach the stage Cosmic fall where he Corners Shadow at the ark revealing that he was once friends of Maria before she died her death being the only concrete thing Shadow can remember at this point the commander who's not given a name in the game reveals that he witnessed Professor Gerald creating Shadow with the aid of black Doom whose alien blood was exactly what the professor needed in order to give shadow the immortality I mentioned before the commander blames Shadow's existence for guns raid in the Ark in the death of Maria besides that the story is filled with all kinds of bits and pieces that become relevant at some point or another like how black doom and forms Shadow at the stages glyphic Canyon and Sky troops with their floating Fortress was planted on Earth as a temple grounds thousands of years ago to be risen when they eventually came back to invade Earth and that they reside in an asteroid looking thing called the black Comet which passes by the Earth every 50 years I'm not sure why now was the right time to invade but still here we are also Eggman tells Shadow at some point that he's a robot fake not the real Shadow I say that nonchalantly because it's all Nolan void with the different Pathways and 10 total endings there are in fact 326 possible combinations for how to get from the start of the game to these 10 endings and most of them are disjointed nonsense but we don't have to worry about that because getting all 10 endings of Shadow unlocks a fully Canon last story mode where it turns out that none of the possible endings happen at all and were merely what if scenarios because this last story segment begins after Shadow has collected all seven Chaos Emeralds in the hopes of using them to regain his memories where black Doom then uses them for his final plan using Chaos Control to warp the black Comet down to the surface of the Earth and begin harvesting humans for the continued survival of the black arms apparently Professor Gerald had partnered with black Doom for project Shadow and in exchange Shadow would gather the seven emeralds to help black do them with this part of the plan but Gerald was actually a good person back then so he had a backup plan throughout the campaign Shadow will see the chaotics up to something they refuse to disclose and in The Last Story it's revealed by the chaotics that Gerald's plan to deal with the black arms away that shadow would when the time came used the eclipse cannon on the ark to destroy the black Comet before the black arms could take over the Earth then project Shadow led to the raid Gerald went insane created his own plan to destroy the Earth black Doom be damned I guess Shadow fueled by his now remembering Maria's wish for him to give hope to humanity becomes Super Shadow to battle against black Doom's final form devil doomed to save the Earth minutes before the Earth is overrun by the black arms while the rest of the cast roots for him from below the biggest slap in the face of all is that this boss fight takes like four minutes max but the developer snuck in the biggest detail of the whole game for players who wait until the 9 Minute Mark at that moment Eggman will chime in and say this Shadow can you hear me this might be the last chance I have to speak to you so what I said about having created you it was all a lie everyone thought you died during that horrible incident but I rescued you with one of my robots you lost your memory that's all you really are the ultimate life form my grandfather created yeah this Shadow is the real one from sa2 not a cheap fake I don't know why they talk such an important detail so far out of most players reach but here we are once the final battle is beaten Super Shadow uses Chaos Control to bring the comet back to outer space where the eclipse Cannon is used to blow it to Smithereens as people all over the world Rejoice with the truth about Gerald's plan to destroy the comet and the true peaceful intentions behind Shadow being broadcast the entire world Professor Gerald's Legacy is Rewritten as someone who is dealt in extremely bad Hand by gun and so the president pledges alongside the gun Commander to try and right the wrongs of the past and make peace with Shadow someone who has fully regained his memories content with everything knowing that he'll continue to uphold Maria's wish of protecting the Earth at all costs ending Shadow the Hedgehog honestly when reflecting on it the story doesn't even sound that bad especially with how it tried to fill in the blanks of the series like why the eclipse can and even exists at all giving them a firm direction to take Shadow's character in for future games however ever that's just me presenting The Cliff Notes version of the story you still have to do 10 playthroughs of Shadow marred by things that don't make sense are hardly connected and more often than not do things for Pure shock value in the hopes of looking more mature than it actually is however like I said I suppose that doesn't matter when looking at it through the lens of canonicity but it's worth mentioning how I think this game is not very good it could have worked with a lot of these ideas but in execution it just feels like fan fiction but we'll place it on the timeline right after Sonic Heroes I mentioned before that on the same day that Sonic Heroes released fans were treated to Sonic battle on the Game Boy Advance this is another game I'm not very fond of Sonic definitely has the character roster to support a fighting game even by 2004 however the problem is that it was a fighting game on the Game Boy Advance it only had four buttons really holding back the potential of the combat quite a lot if that was the worst of it I wouldn't complain too much but this game might be the most bloated Sonic game to ever exist including a full storyline for Sonic Tails Knuckles Amy Rouge cream and Shadow plus a final story packed full of dialogue and repetitive battles that last in eternity and oftentimes feel like they were designed to bottleneck players but at least in this game's case the story is actually pretty good no joke I genuinely think the GBA Sonic fighting game is a cool story it begins with Dr Eggman trying to control a new Mech this one he read about in Professor Gerald's diary and it's called a gizoid but since it doesn't respond to anything the doctor and His Infinite Wisdom just tosses the gizoid into the ocean as it washes on Shore for Sonic to find Sonic and friends learn that the gizoid starts out as a complete Blank Slate but if you insert Chaos Emeralds into it then it'll grow in Consciousness and strength developing a full personality after just a couple of them they call him Emerald because he's powered by Chaos Emeralds one of Emerald's strongest abilities is how he can see the actions and behaviors of others and copy them perfectly which translates to the game as you can mix and match the light and heavy combo attacks of other characters to transform Emerald into the strongest character in the game picking only the best and most powerful moves from the rest of the cast Emerald is the main character of Sonic battle it's just that his story is seen through the perspective of all the other characters as Emerald forms bonds with each and every single one like how he pokes fun at Knuckles since that's what he sees Sonic doing or how he protects cream from these mass-produced gamma robots and she in turn does the same for him shadow and rouge want to get a hold of emerald so they can destroy him the two of them know and reveal to the rest of the cast that the gizoid was a robot meant for Destruction and War and that's why he should be shut down this leads to a lot of good moments like when Sonic reminds shadow that his purpose was once to destroy and look at him now eventually Shadow learns to trust Emerald enough to give him his Chaos Emerald the last one Emerald needs to reach max power in the end Eggman gains the upper hand in his new Death Egg as his plan was to use its energy to overload Emeril and awaken his true destructive power which leads to a Bittersweet final boss as Sonic has to fight against the overpowered Emerald he spent the whole game building up activating Gerald's failsafe for weapons where that they go out of control they'll self-destruct leaving the cast and mourning over the loss of emerald someone they regarded as a true friend before Eggman tampered with him and unlike Shadow Emerald was never revived leaving his story to Sonic battle which is something people fondly remember about this game now as for the Canon discussion it largely revolves around Shadow his appearance at all is obviously why it's after Heroes as I mentioned of Omega at one point but then I don't know if this was just a mistake someone made when writing this game but Shadow and Sonic battle remembers everything about Maria and the professor and what happened at Adventure 2. so for that reason it would have to go after Shadow the Hedgehog where the Amnesia plot is resolved although it's now worth mentioning that it is later explained in the game Sonic Chronicles the Dark Brotherhood that the gizoids were also a product of the ancient Echidna Clan this would explain why Gerald even researched gizoids because he was a researcher of Echidna lore however one of the hard lines actually drawn by the Sonic encyclospedia book is that Sega officially considers the Dark Brotherhood as non-canonical it was an RPG developed by BioWare for the DS back in 2008 but this game presented a big legal problem for Sega as one of the former Sonic comic writers got the usage of Echidna characters outside of ones already existing in the games to be his copyrighted material and felt the Dark Brotherhood infringed upon it and then sued and this ended in a stalemate and with the statute of limitations expired the only way to reopen the case would be if Sega ever used things from Sonic Chronicles again and so the Dark Brotherhood is now a game Sega would like you to forget fine by me it ended on a cliffhanger anyway which is not something I reward in a story as you'll see later in this timeline series I'm spending this time on the Dark Brotherhood now during the Sonic battle segment because it's the only natural point to mention that little bit about gizoid lore I'd like to believe that info about gizoids and echidnas can still be head Canon even if that game has been thoroughly disowned moving right along we finally have reached Sonic Advance 3. this is another one of the earliest Sonic games I played and it's still one of my favorites to this day removing the multiple character campaigns from previous advanced games and instead doing one larger campaign where you pick what characters you want to play in teams of two getting to play a Sonic Tails Knuckles Amy and cream one character being the one you play as and the other one being your support character who you can call upon for tag actions it was a lot of fun and created a lot of room for experimentation and replay value the plot for this one's still pretty simple being game focused on the gameplay but it does have some lore ties Eggman uses Chaos Control to turn the world into seven pockets of reality and it's up to Sonic and friends to gather the emeralds and turn things back to normal all that's pretty standard fare but what's new is eggman's latest robotic companion in Sonic battle Eggman had already tried creating duplicates of emerald that weren't as good as the real thing but here he's perfected the technology pitting Sonic and crew against General who can merge with Machinery like eggman's boss Mech seen throughout the game but it seems like Eggman can't catch a break from robots turning on him as general steals the chaos emeralds at the altar of the Master Emerald and uses them to reach his ultimate form Sonic The Becoming Super Sonic and directly teaming up with Dr Eggman to defeat General and we get a pretty cute resolution to the emerald storyline in the ending as we see that General was later recovered by Cream who brought him to Tails so they could reprogram him to become something like the robot they once knew and that's exactly what happens General has never seen again in the games past Sonic Advance 3 but I think it was really cool how this game had played off the storyline of Sonic battle giving that a bit of closure as they made the final Sonic platformer for the GBA as for where we go from here I figured I'd take the time now to address the Sonic Riders series these are spin-off racing games where Sonic and crew race on hoverboards called Extreme Gear Sonic Riders one is one of my favorite Sonic games definitely my favorite spin-off the series has ever done it's just so cool doing tricks off of ramps and such with fast-moving hoverboards it feels perfectly in style for Sonic the Hedgehog the sequel zero gravity never appealed to me as much with its more automated gameplay and the less said about Sonic Free Riders on Xbox Kinect the better still probably the most miserable time I've had playing a game but hey the video was funny you know was the worst game I've ever played in my life the Rider series is definitely taken as Canon as the tales 2 videos in the official Sonic social media have mentioned their events before the Babylon Rogues introduced in the writers games also become characters in the comics however when I conceptualized this video I decided to de-canonize them from my head Cannon simply because I felt like it was really weird to just have these hoverboard Adventures filled with their own story and Laura toston alongside the main series not that goofy side Adventures haven't been included before but then there's the whole vibe and aesthetic of Sonic Tails and Knuckles having sportswear before they even get hoverboards and then Eggman being the CEO of a corporation while also battling gun just feels clashing not like he keeps his world dominating interests a secret well I guess it's possible but it feels out of place however minor spoilers for a minor detail of Sonic Frontiers skip to this point to get past it the Babylonians are mentioned by name and a text blur from Eggman and Frontiers canonizing the writers games officially well the first two at least it seems Sega has also disowned Free Riders since it doesn't get a chapter in the encyclospedia while I'm here I might as well mention that Frontier is also canonizes tangle from the IDW Comics as well and even states that sticks the badger from the sonic boom Universe does exist in the prime Universe Frontiers also mentions things I've discussed in this video like how Eggman did indeed begin calling himself that out of spite for Sonic and how he never knew Maria but I was talking about Sonic Riders I couldn't work it in if I wanted to since the timeline animation you've been seeing was made months ago before this Revelation so now my stance on writers is that it is Canon I guess but you can place it wherever you see fit since I don't have room to work it into mine although since this is the complete cut of the video I figured I'd try to do something to further flesh this out this is pretty clear now that Sonic Riders is absolutely Canon as of Frontiers the bulk of this video had been worked on before that game dropped really with the Sonic Riders games being so self-contained they could just go anywhere past sa1 one or just past all of its major characters being introduced in the game timeline for simplicity's sake for reasons you'll see shortly I play Sonic Riders 1 on an updated timeline between Sonic Rush and Rush Adventure putting something between those two Adventures similarly I play zero gravity between Rivals 1 and Rivals 2 for the same reason zero gravity mentioning the next World Grand Prix at the end which is Sonic Free Riders that I drop between Black Knight and colors this won't be mentioned again throughout the video but like I said I wanted to add this and for those who watched the complete cut this finalized timeline image will be in my community Tab and my Twitter page was made by Jeb tube the animated timeline that's been playing we posted on my extras Channel and we'll have a link in the description as for what is next Sonic the Hedgehog released in the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2006. this game is always referred to by fans and at this point officially by Sega as Sonic 06 and that's what we shall call it for the rest of the video now many people are probably thinking what the 06 isn't that supposed to be a reboot that failed well not quite I believe that idea is understanding of something ug Naka said when promoting the game he likened their intention that Batman Begins and Spider-Man 2. Batman Begins obviously being a reboot of the film continuity which is why I think people thought their intentions were to wipe the Slate clean but he also mentioned Spider-Man 2 which is a sequel so what he meant was that he wanted the first Sonic game on next-gen Hardware to be a big spectacular Blockbuster of course this didn't go as intended Sonic 06 is one of the most infamous video games of all time as it was released in a thoroughly unfinished state with bugs and frustrating gameplay Galore it's quite tragic honestly this game wanted to do something big and delivered upon none of it thanks to its Rush development and mismanagement forever tarnishing the reputation of Sonic team and the Sonic franchise as a whole however what is the story and how does it fit into the larger series well Sonic 06 is a time travel plot with three character campaigns meaning it won't be easy to explain but I'll do my best as if this video wasn't long enough already Sonic 06 is split into three campaigns one for Sonic another for shadow and then for the newcomer Silver the Hedgehog let's begin with Shadow's Story the game takes place in the country of soliana as Shadow the Hedgehog is seen raiding Dr eggman's Mountain Base nearby Shadow is now a fully deputized agent of gun having really made peace with his past in the shadow game as the president and the gun Commander were equally interested in that it makes sense to me Shadow's goal is to ensure peace on Earth and why not do that as an agent where he has all the benefits of a team supporting him including Rouge it makes sense that shadow and Omega follow Rouge and being gun agents giving them something to do in these stories that's different from the main cast especially since Sonic battle showed how Shadow was kind of aimless without a goal to achieve anyway Shadow was raiding this Base by order from the president to search for Rouge who is sent here to locate an artifact called the scepter of Darkness that the doctor got his hands on but after escaping they're cornered by Eggman at Kingdom Valley the ruins of the old soliana castle that got decimated after a failed experiment called the Solaris project the ensuing fight caused the scepter to smash onto the ground releasing an evil spirit within that takes the form of Shadow's Shadow and introduces himself as methylus the dark who really hold the Deep grudge against Shadow despite him having no idea who this is methylis then just teleporting shadow and rouge hundreds of years into the future as they need to find a way back this future is the home of Silver the Hedgehog a telekinetic Hedgehog who can fly and lift objects with his mind the world has been utterly ravaged by a fire demon called Iblis that silver alongside his friend Blaze the cat fight against on the regular never being able to kill it for good until one day a mysterious black Hedgehog called methylus the dark convinces silver that it's entirely possible to travel back in time to when ibilis had yet to be freed and kill the person responsible for unleashing him to the astonishment of silver who is desperate to save his home the Ibis trigger is Sonic the Hedgehog as silver and Blaze are sent back in time by mephilis to kill this guy beginning Sonic's story where he's traveled to soliana to enjoy the Festival of the sun run by the current monarch of soliana Princess Elise III until Dr Eggman arrives to capture the princess and unlock the secrets of the Flames of disaster until Sonic jumps in to save the day eventually running into silver who tries to kill Sonic but he's saved by Amy who met and befriended silver before seeing him trying to murder Sonic giving silver pause for thought on whether or not he's doing the right thing here Sonic's whole campaign being a wild goose chase of Sonic rescuing the princess only for her to get recaptured and re-rescued repeatedly as he comes to learn of the fact that Eggman is after a lease because of something related to the Solaris project failure trying to recreate the experiment himself to control time which is tested on team Sonic sending them hundreds of years into the future where a shadow and rouge are currently trapped as the five of them team up to find two chaos emeralds and escape this doomed future Shadow remarked that the sensation of time travel felt like Chaos Control and that they could try using that to find a way back home along the way shadow and rouge run into a busted up run down Omega unable to bring him back online and thus leaving him behind for the time being as Sonic Tails Knuckles and Ruiz make it back to the present Shadow hanging back after seeing methylus once again who reveals to shadow that once the world was destroyed by ibilis the people decided to blame Shadow for it fearing his destructive power once more and stealing him away again but Shadow hears none of it and fights mephilis only to be backed up by a fully online omega time travel logic starts getting really bizarre here I mean you already have the fact there exists two versions of methylus in the story The methless that shadow accidentally Unleashed is the present version of the character and the one that tells silver he needs to kill Sonic is methless from the future some then the game never really explains just something you can extrapolate given the different temperaments and slightly altered designs between the two versions of mephilis upon looking into that fact more I found absolutely no sources that backed it up whatsoever it is pure headcanon from my perspective although it does make sense to me so I'm going to keep saying it but I figured I'd clarify that before continuing now back to time traveling Shenanigans then you have the fact that the reason Omega was shut down in the future was that once Rouge returned to the present day she realized Shadow was still in the future and found Omega giving him a chaos are more than instructing him to give it to Shadow once the time arises but then this future version of Omega travels back to the present with Shadow which would then mean that two omegas are in the present now unless the original Omega and media at least shut down for hundreds of years but the story never explains that sort of thing this plot feels more rushed than any game prior to it I mean have you seen how the game turned out this plot reeks of it being a first draft however I still think a lot of the ideas here are really interesting like how despite the title of the game being Sonic the Hedgehog the main characters of this game are Shadow Silver and Princess Elise Sonic is a pretty static character throughout the story his entire goal from beginning to end being rescuing her without question not even really caring why Eggman is doing what he's doing just knowing it's probably bad teaching at least a sheltered person devoid of friends and family what it's like to live a little and become a bit more decisive or how silver has a complete Arc here too he begins the game naive enough to trust mephilis to where he wants to kill Sonic but he's a really kind-hearted person at heart just really misguided he and Blaze are reminded of the urgency in killing Sonic by mephilis once they start to ask questions about what exactly is going to happen if they don't but at this exact moment is when Shadow learns from Eggman that the story of mephilis goes back to the Solaris project from 10 years ago Shadows save Sonic from Silver and learns that he's being tricked by methless as Shadow urges silver to follow him into the past and learn what really happened the people of soliana worship their sun god Solaris the Duke of soliana sought to control the power of Solaris to go back in time and stop his wife elise's mother from dying something that can't be done by conventional time travel clearly as going forward and backwards through time with Chaos Control can't actually alter the natural course of events case in point Shadow and Silver traveling back to this moment to witness the experiment's failure killing the researchers and mortally wounding the Duke as he was protecting Elise from the blast the failure of the experiment split Solaris into two pieces the Mind becomes the black shadow mephilis and the power of Solaris becomes the Flames of disaster Iblis the Duke gives Shadow the scepter of darkness which he uses to seal methodists away this being the moment that mephilis met Shadow and why he has a vendetta against him earlier in the story when Shadow had never heard of him before silver tracks down Iblis and sees the Duke seal it inside of Elise and for whatever reason Iblis will be released if Elise ever cries hence why she's so emotionally shut down at the start of Sonic's story Dr Eggman knows ibilis resides in Elise but just doesn't know how to awaken it methylis did though which is why he had wanted silver to kill Sonic since his death might be the thing to drive Elise over the edge mephilis's goal in the present day is to awaken Ibis and merge back with him to become Solaris once again before Iblis becomes a giant monster in his own right I presume silver feels bad for the young Elise having lost both of her parents at this point giving her a Chaos Emerald he found earlier in the story which is why she has one at the beginning of Sonic's playthrough as well as he and Shadow return to the present silver teams up with Sonic to try and stop Eggman and rescue Elise again and Shadow knowing he needs to try and use the scepter to stop methless once more the third Act of Shadow's story is one of the most fondly remembered parts of this game team dark's loyalty is shaken a bit as methylus reveals that in the future it was Omega given the job of stealing Shadow away which visibly hurts Shadow to think about but the team's gonna remain intact without question shadow even if you believe everyone in the world will be against you know that I'll always remain by your side remember that [Music] I will [Music] they hunt methylus down at Dusty desert who once again tries telling Shadow the futility of fighting if people are going to betray him but it's moments like this that make shadows so great in o6 his character has been dealing with mistaken identity in so many of these games even sa2 but in o6 he's got no worries about the past as a result of the Shadow game nor does he Fear the Future which is why he still fully trusts his teammates and is going to do what's right and fight methless who is now so powerful that he can't be contained in the scepter surrounding the team with an army of Methodist clones so Shadow has to use his true ultimate power ending Shadow's story with the character's coolest moment of all time why risk your life for those who will persecute you later World chooses to become my enemy I will fight like I always have [Music] foreign that's not to say the other characters don't have cool moments to cap off their stories Sonic and Silver fail to save Elise as she and Eggman die on board the new egg carrier as it inexplicably crashes Sonic realizes that he can go back in time once more just a little bit to undo it Sonic raiding the lab eggman's occupying where the experiment went wrong 10 years ago and Boards the egg carrier before it takes off and defeats the doctor saving the day probably his coolest moments in the game as he's pretty no-nonsense in the last string of cut scenes silver and Blaze returned to their home which is still a fiery hellscape regardless of what happened in the past but silver has learned that he can use the emeralds to seal Iblis inside himself believing he can handle that burden but the spell doesn't work on him like it does from people in the royal family Blaze finally contributing to the plot believing her firepowers might make her a better candidate and while this does rid the world of Iblis it's a tragic moment for silver as Blaze is destroyed in the process he saved the world but the question Central to his campaign comes up again at what cost while all might seem well with the universe you then unlock the last story the final Last Story segment in the series as the this was the last game to use this structure of Storytelling the first 10 minutes of the last story in this game is absolute chaos as it seems the writers completely tossed their arms in the air and said screw it we need to get from these character endings to the final boss in a couple of cut scenes doesn't matter if it doesn't make sense just make it happen Shadow might have defeated nephilis but remember there are two mephaluses in this plot the other one decides that trick and goobers like silver into killing Sonic was a Fool's errand and he could just do it himself he finds Sonic and Elise blinds them with a chaos that mortal then shoots a laser through Sonic's chest that genuinely kills him Sonic the Hedgehog gets murdered on screen in a game with it being that easy you really gotta wonder why methless didn't just do it himself before perhaps Elise and Sonic didn't have the proper Bond earlier and he just wanted silver to ramp up the stakes for him I have no idea the story never says but regardless Elise cries over Sonic's death and Iblis is released but things really go off the rails as methless then just warps all seven emeralds to his location when he spent all of Shadow's story looking for emeralds like what was he waiting for methless uses the emeralds to fuse with ibilis and becomes Solaris again destroying all of time space in the process as each of the surviving characters are gathered in this time space Rift as they react to the news of Sonic's death everyone including Shadow just thinks yeah we're kind of screwed until silver declares they've got to try something they've got to travel into what's left of the world that is being torn apart by Solaris to gather the emeralds and bring Sonic back to life beginning the final stage end of the world where you play bits of the earlier levels only now on the brink of total time space collapse after that you get the most infamous moment in Sonic history where they resolve the plot line where Elise is in love with Sonic I guess by kissing him back to life with the power of the emeralds shame too because besides that entire angle of the story this is a pretty cool cut scene Sonic is revived as Super Sonic and without words it gives that power to Shadow who becomes Super Shadow once more and also silver the first and only appearance of super silver as the super Trio battles Solaris at every end of the time space continuum I think this final boss wins the award for my favorite in the entire series the stakes have never been this ludicrously high in the Sonic series and they use every tool at their disposal to make this a cool moment like how the first phase of the fight has this more quiet haunting music in the background but then in phase two when the heroes get the upper hand they don't just play a vocal theme like they did in the previous games you get a full instrumental arrangement of Sonic's theme his world in the background and it's absolutely one of the best tracks in the series [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] is destroyed Sonic and Elise are taken back in time once more back to when Solaris was merely a flame one that the Duke planned to use to alter time like I mentioned earlier the world is irrevocably messed up after Solaris just destroyed time and space so there are only recourse is to blow out the flame of Solaris before the experiment ever took place Elise doesn't want to because throughout this whole Adventure she's learned what it's like to have fun and enjoy things but Sonic consistent with his whole philosophy in the game encourages her to do it because it's the right thing sad that history will be changed forever but glad the time that was spent happened at all after she blows out the flame history is changed forever the ending begins at the festival of the Sun that Sonic's campaign started on only Dr Eggman doesn't arrive to wreak havoc because the Solaris project never happened Sonic is here just seeing the sights but the entire Adventure just never happened although Elise gets a sense of familiarity as Sonic blasts by ending the game on a positive but sad note as all the major characters went through a really major arc but it has been undone to stop Solaris from destroying the world or being misused in the first place now with that long-winded explanation wrapped up you might wonder what does that mean for Sonic 06 to spot on the Sonic timeline I mean the plot of the game never happening would mean that it's not canon right well no Sonic Generations a later game confirms it exists in the Multiverse if that's what you want to call it but even looking at the logic of o6 the story of the game is not completely erased what happened is that they created an alternate timeline timeline a as we'll call it goes from Sonic Advance 3 into Sonic 06 because the Solaris project happened and failed but the events of the game caused this timeline to become defunct in Timeline B the flame of Solaris was blown out before then so the experiment could never happen this completely Alters everything going forward o6 is Canon just the timeline splits as a result of it and from there I can now explain the Fallout Sonic 06's story caused the series starting with Sonic Rush in the Nintendo DS this game was released in 2005 and you might have been wondering why I skipped over it before and that's because I'm marking it as the first game of timeline B following the Divergence of o6 this game was actually the debut of Blaze the Cat in this game she's the princess from another dimension called the soul dimension a place where the soul emeralds reside Blaze regularly battles against Dr Eggman Nega who has traveled to Sonic's Dimension to team up with the regular Eggman as Blazers trapped here too and needs to recover the soul emeralds and has this whole Arc about learning to trust friends through meeting and befriending cream and the whole Sonic crew Sonic and Blaze team up to become Supersonic and burning blaze to defeat the two doctors and then stop the dimensions from colliding with one another by returning to the soul dimension with the soul emeralds a thankfully simple story after the multi-page dump of text I just had to write regarding 06 but yeah this is Blazer's true backstory she comes from a different dimension and learned from Sonic and friends what it's like to trust others her being from the future and friends with silver is purely a timeline a thing although we'll see later in the series that like Elise and o6 is ending silver and Blaze have a sense of familiarity with one another despite not knowing why Blaze's story continues in the sequel Sonic Rush Adventure released in 2007 and this one Sonic and Tails are the ones accidentally sent to the soul dimension when getting swept up in a thunderstorm although they don't know they're in another dimension for a while as they spend the First Act traveling with an island native called Marine the Raccoon the situation is not clear until running in De Blaze while fighting with the local robot Pirates over something called the jeweled scepter as is revealed at the end that Eggman has teamed up with his ultimate Dimension counterpart once more only in his Dimension This Time as Sonic and Blaze use their respective emeralds once more to become Supersonic and burning blaze defeat them as Sonic and Tails finally find a way home not much really goes on in this one so I'm just gonna safely place it after the first game now the Roamer is finished with part two of the video I realize I still have a lot of time travel and dimension hopping to talk about so before we get into that I figured I'd discuss Sonic and the Secret Rings a game that was released in the Nintendo Wii in 2007. this one was developed by Sonic team and released close to the launch of the console as porting Sonic 06 would take more effort than putting minimal resources into making a new game so that's how this game was born in another factor in why 06 turned out the way it did Secret Rings was an entirely self-contained Adventure although it was confirmed Canon and Sonic Generations but that's neither here nor there the plot of Secret Rings is that apparently Sonic owns books at his house the biggest plot twist in the game if you ask me the book of the Arabian Nights based on the real book 1001 Knights containing famous folklore like Aladdin is more than mere fiction in the Sonic universe as the book is a world in and of itself Sonic is visited by a genie of the ring from inside the book called Shara who claims that the genie of the lamp called eraser gin who is later revealed to be the genie of Aladdin got so tired of granting wishes that he's now wiping out the story from within so she enlists the help of Sonic to save the story but things get tricky as the Eraser gin seeks the seven World rings and blasts Sonic with a flame that will kill him if he doesn't gather The Seven Rings In Time Sonic and Shara become good friends throughout the plot running into characters such as Alibaba and Sinbad who all look and sound like familiar Sonic characters despite them not actually being Tails or Knuckles the game's story is pretty out there but it served as a good launching pad for the designers to give us more creative levels than we tend to see in Sonic games like dinosaur jungle or levitated ruins a series of flying manta rays you jump between that house gargoyles you chase after as I said its story is very self-contained as Sonic does save the Arabian Knights In the End having his own Journey added to the book of the Arabian Nights Sonic and the Secret Rings a self-contained story isn't a problem by any means I think this game houses some really cool moments like how a Razer gin and sonic bounce off each other in entertaining fashion building up the boss fights well the Eraser gin being a really hammy villain that keeps calling Sonic a rat throughout the story to the Hedgehog's adamant protest the final moment between the two being one of my favorite moments for Sonic's character as he gets control of the lamp that can steal a razor for good they cannot be denied by that filthy rat I told you I'm not a rat I'm a hedgehog it's pretty cool not gonna lie I'm sliding this one after the rush games because I figured a journey like this game that really could go almost anywhere before Generations would serve as a nice relief from all the time travel and dimension hopping I was just discussing speaking of which Sonic rival is released in the PlayStation Portable back in 2006 and is home to one of the dumbest plots in Sonic history and I would know I'm the one spending almost three hours on the subject this game revolves around Dr Eggman Nega arriving with his latest brilliant scheme he's got a camera that will turn whatever it focuses on into a card trapping Amy and Tails as cards for Sonic to rescue and the Master Emerald as one bringing Knuckles into the plot his ultimate plan being turning the entire world into a card that being the silliest part I mean hope he has a viable plan to establish an off-world base and the ability to sustain the lifestyle this version of the inverse doctor does not come from the soul dimension though one of the most confusing developments in the history of the Sonic IP was what happened with Silver Blaze and Eggman Nega following Sonic 06 as established blaze in this version of the doctor came from the soul dimension then Sonic 06 came out with silver and Blaze both being from the future originally o6 was meant to tie into rush but that was abandoned in development we squared it away in this video with the timeline split however Sonic Rivals served as Silver's introduction to timeline b as he also comes from the future like o6 however it's not the same future as o6 because there is no Ibis Rivals also tried following suit with o6 by having Eggman nego reveal he's eggman's descendant so tainted by the legacy of the original Eggman that he's come back to take his place with his card camera scheme I don't know how any of that works the official statement on this character is that he does in fact come from the future like Rivals claims silver was a regular Nemesis to him but the doctor traveled to the soul dimension and then became a rival to blaze silver traveling back in time to stop negative eggman's plans I'm guessing a lot of miscommunication created this mess but technically it does make some sense if his work in the future was tarnished by the Robotnik lineage it would make sense to travel to a different dimension to avoid that the only difficult thing to deal with is how the doctors were allies and rush and enemies in the rivals games it would be easy to just toss the rivals games out of Canon however these games as I said debuted silver to timeline B reintroducing him to the entire cast the game has to be Canon so we just have to deal with the Eggman Nega debacle I don't know maybe he thought teaming up with his great-great-great-granddad will be effective when that failed he just decided to burn everything to the ground I can't devote more energy to the plot of Rivals as his complete rubbish these games being the guiltiest of that every character must fight each other for no reason Trope in this series but it's relevant due to Silver's meeting Sonic and friends again so we're slapping this game after Secret Rings and then you get Rivals too which is also a big adventure of Eggman Nega being up to no good trying to awaken the Ifrit monster in the future by collecting ciao in the present day as silver has returned once more to save them teaming up with Espio from the chaotix to achieve that goal Shadow is informed of this by the real Eggman who uses Metal Sonic as his vessel to deliver messages to Shadow Sonic and Tails try to stop Eggman having no idea that it's actually Eggman Nega in disguise Knuckles and Rouge team up to track down emeralds also not knowing the Eggman ruse that's a thing in both games Shadow and Silver know what's actually going on while Sonic and Knuckles don't Rivals 2 isn't anywhere near as nonsensical as the first game even though the writing is still pretty poor since the game has to contrive reasons for characters to race each other in almost every stage the funniest part of the entire game being this part where Knuckles and Silver have an entirely normal and level-headed conversation unlike the immediate jump to fighting and all the rest of the cutscenes silver what are you doing here hey what's with getting in my face I need those ciao it's important that I have them now move aside help yourself I need to collect some rings to fuel this Emerald detector okay thanks I also unironically like the scene in Shadow story where Metal Sonic almost destroys himself to reveal he has a Chaos Emerald inside him that shadow can use to return to the present day I like it because it does show that metal Sonic does still have some free will left when Rivals one and two both go to show that metal Sonic after his rebellion in Sonic Heroes became more lifeless than ever just a robot that the doctor tosses at Sonic as cannon fodder or to be his eyes and ears like in this game but in all campaigns the day is saved and all is right in the universe placing this game after Sonic Rivals one in the timeline as Things become much different for the series starting with the next game Sonic Unleashed I said this one was a lot different than previous games which can be seen with its gameplay as the game debuted the boosting mechanic into the 3D series which redefined how Sonic levels were made going forward like sa1 had done when it was released while it does still have many tropes that came from the adventure games in its story Sonic Unleashed also laid the groundwork for the games that would come after this and how it tells that story you may have noticed that in a large chunk of the games discussed in part 2 the series started to focus Less on Sonic himself despite being the Title Character Sonic Heroes is most important campaign is team darks Sonic battle is all about Emerald shadow gets his own game the game titled Sonic the Hedgehog is about Shadow Silver and Elise Sonic doesn't even know what's going on in the rivals games and the list goes on not to say Sonic was not important in any of those games they still play as him for most of them I just mean to say that Unleashed was a bit of a refresh as the prior games kept going and going with more lore and characters being put on top of each other Unleashed having wants nothing to do with the plots established in previous games being more self-contained or just how a lot of the games in this video are you begin in outer space with Dr eggman's Armada that Sonic tears through in spectacular fashion even becoming Supersonic in the opening of the game still to this day the most visually impressive and engaging Sonic cutscene this was a setup as Eggman uses his new machine to draw the chaos emeralds from Sonic and use their energy to blast the Earth with a giant space laser but one set to specifically shatter the planet into several different pieces to awaken the monster that lives inside the core called Dark Gaia Sonic taking the brunt of the machine's energy has dark guys Powers infused with him and transforming him into Sonic the Werehog a vicious combat-oriented version of Sonic that Eggman flings out the airlock alongside the energy drained Chaos Emeralds although Sonic doesn't have to stay like that forever since he only becomes the Werehog at night even though he doesn't feel or act differently in this form he just can't run fast and can instead go combo mad anyway Dark Gaia is too weak to hold form at this point so Eggman has to find a way to bring it back to use its power to rule the world meanwhile Sonic crash lands on Earth and meets a flying rabbit looking thing that has no memory of anything not even its name that Sonic calls chip the two of them joined forces with tails to go on a globetrotting adventure exploring various countries on Earth interacting with the people who live there as you gradually bring the planet Back Together by locating the Gaia temples hidden on each continent that restores the power of the chaos emeralds in the process Sonic Unleashed resonates with a lot of fans specifically because of how it's simple but Grand at the same time just exploring these sonicified versions of the different cultures on Earth as Charming as Sonic and Chip grow in their friendship throughout the story cringe-inducing English line reads from Chip notwithstanding the plot itself isn't that complicated which I think helps it remain focused on good moments like Amy finding Sonic and Werehog form but she thinks it's another one of those times where she's confused Sonic for someone else and leaves which makes sonic feel bad about his current state the game also provides countless memorable action scene throughout to keep the story feeling like a fun adventure rather than melodramatic by the end of the plot Things become clearer as chip learns that the sixth Gaia Temple that he's actually Light Gaia whose purpose is to defeat Dark Gaia whenever he rises up which has occurred in an endless cycle for millions of years but this is the first time chip was ever able to see the world he protected and is grateful for that fact Eggman tried Awakening Dark Gaia prematurely and because of that Light Gaia also awoke but unclear on his purpose because of eggman's forcing this to happen but it doesn't matter now as you get to the coolest climax in the Sonic franchise while you've been restoring the shattered Planet Eggman has built his final Fortress in the last continent yet to be restored building it around the last Gaia Temple that goes directly to the core of the Earth where Dark Gaia resides ever since Sonic Adventure 1 the doctor has been discussing his plans for robotnic land and later Eggman land is his ultimate goal Unleashed finally decided to pay that off by having him succeed in creating it the ultimate Monument to himself Eggman statues and symbols everywhere it's a carnival from hell and this is the final level they don't skip a beat here since it's one of the hardest Sonic levels to ever exist roller coaster rides that go off the tracks and onto a path of lasers conveyor belts of Doom surprise blind sides no drop Shadows wait what it's memorable to say the absolute least as if the final level wasn't chaotic enough the final bosses are even more so Sonic as the Werehog first battling the egg Dragoon Mech that sends you plummeting into the core of the earth as you use the Werehog strength to pull the machine apart piece by piece even though the emeralds are all back to normal Dark Gaia is fully powered up as Light Gaia uses his powers to call upon all of the temples to form a battle suit as Sonic transforms into supersonic to land the final blow Dark Gaia also draws his power back from the Werehog form before this so Sonic loses out on that transformation the finale of Unleashed does just about everything you'd want in one of these games although mechanically the last boss is a slog to play going on for far too long and being very repetitive but the moment was quite cool as supersonic blasts right through Dark Gaia to finish it off the planet is saved from dark guy as corruption and the final continent begins to go back in place Light Gaia knowing he's fulfilled his duties sends Sonic back to the surface ready to go back to hibernation Until Dark Gaia comes around once more Sonic Stars chips ring though and he can use that to remember him by setting off for the next adventure ending Sonic Unleashed one of my favorite Sonic games despite its pacing problems it's just a memorable game and a challenging one a big win for its replay value for the timeline I'm placing it right after Rivals too not just because it came after but because of what I said at the top of the segment Unleashed was the beginning of a new direction for Sonic so it's only natural to place it here although technically what order the rivals games Secret Rings and Unleashed go in really could be any mixture of the four just as long as Rivals 2 is after one obviously and that it's after the rush games but that's what happens when things become more self-contained I suppose moving right along the next game dropped just a few months after Unleashed Sonic and the Black Knight on the Wii from 2009 this being the sequel to Secret Rings this time Sonic has pulled into the world of King Arthur by a wizard called Marlena Marlena is being hunted by King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table Lancelot who's portrayed as Shadow gwain whose knuckles and Percival whose Blaze merlina claims that King Arthur is Immortal and holds on to power with the Scabbard of Excalibur so Sonic needs to defeat him to end his rule Sonic pulls the sword caliburn from the stone and uses it to become a knight himself the story is about Sonic and caliburn who can talk as Sonic actually gains the skills to defeat the Knights of the Round Table and then King Arthur this game is some of the coolest moments for Sonic as this Cockiness feels right at home for this kind of Adventure as he slashes through enemies and obstacles while still taking the time to be a proper Hero by helping people in need not just fighting bad guys but in the final twist King Arthur was nothing more than an illusion and merlina wanted the Scabbard of Excalibur to become super powerful herself this is because she's grown to be nihilistic seeing that all things come to an end now wanted to have the power to keep the kingdom going forever Sonic and the other Knights team up to stop her plans as the sacred swords combine to turn Sonic into Excalibur Sonic who defeats the dark queen form of merlina in the ending Sonic shows compassion for her understanding why she might do this but knowing it's natural for things to change just the same merlina every world has its end I know that's kind of sad but that's why we gotta live life to the fullest in the time we have at least that's what I figure Sonic's action is deeming him worthy of being the true King Arthur no I'm not kidding that's the thing that happens but Sonic eventually returns to his own world and gets his story and Shrine in the book Sonic and the Black Knight like Secret Rings the plot of this one is perfect for Sonic Team to get more out there and creative with Sonic and I'm all in favor of it the timeline in this one is funny because there's little to work with given just how isolated the plot here is however there is just one detail to latch onto in the post-credits scene Sonic is criticized by Amy for using this phony King Arthur story to excuse his having forgotten about their date in Sonic Unleashed it's possible to accept a date from Amy that will happen after the world is saved from Dark Gaia and there you have it the game takes place after Sonic Unleashed because of that alone so now we reach the 2010s I already dismissed Sonic Free Riders earlier so we can just talk about Sonic the Hedgehog 4 episode 1 which released in 2010 and episode 2 which came out in 2012. despite the name Sonic 4 I'm tossing these games out of the stratosphere as far as Canon is concerned externally Sonic 4 was meant to be a mobile game that Sega up charged as a console game and called it Sonic 4 to cash in but then they called it episode 1 to make up for its disgraceful lack of content it's a total sham of the game episode 2 improved things but it was too little too late for this whole thing but then internally it's a mess episode one kind of breaks my rule that games with no story are things I can't work into a timeline as the plot is just Eggman is bad stop him it is a story but it's so insignificant because it's a mobile game which is fine for that platform but not for the sequel to Sonic 3 and Knuckles one of the most epic 2D Platformers of its day it also vaguely takes place between Sonic 3 and Sonic Adventure modeling the waters with the four years of spin-off games that happen between them that I talked about in part one then you have episode 2 which has more going for it technically but is still a mess conceptually it takes place immediately after episode 1 with Tails returning for this game but then the game also tries cross-promoting the Sonic CD remaster from 2011 by bringing back little planet from that game as Eggman retrieves Metal Sonic from Stardust Speedway and grows him back to full power in order to fight Sonic again this could explain why Metal Sonic was created before Mecha Sonic but then not used again for several games he simply got left behind on little planet although its shows Stardust Speedway bad future because they ripped the assets from Sonic Generations which if taken literally means that little planet couldn't have left because if you don't destroy all the robot generators in CD or don't collect the time Stones the doctor uses the time Stones himself to bring little planet back oops but then you have the Death Egg Mark II being created around little planet which regardless of what ending you get in episode 2 is still that way by the end of the game and since episode 3 was deconfirmed before episode 2 even released it leaves the plot of Sonic 4 off on a cliffhanger that will never be resolved so rip little planet I guess for all these reasons combined I am chucking Sonic 4 where it belongs straight out of Canon I decided to devote all this time to it now because it's a game literally called Sonic 4 so one would think it's important enough to include but I am not and those were my reasons so let's continue with actually important games Sonic Unleashed was like the adventure 1 of the 2010s a game preceding the new decade that laid down a lot of the foundation for later entries while still being similar to previous ones like I said in that comparison Sonic Colors is definitely the Adventure 2 equivalent as this game was released in the Wii in 2010. you still had the Boost gameplay from Sonic Unleashed but now with reduced scope in terms of story which was a breath of fresh air at the time of colors release I mean how many times in part two did I say Sonic then turns into Super Sonic to defeat the monster it's not something I have a problem with but colors like I said was a breath of fresh air this game takes a more comedic approach in terms of writing which also stuck with the games that followed this one introducing a new voice cast for all the major characters besides Eggman and changing the lore a bit once again in Japan Sonic's world has always been called Earth ever since Sonic 1. once the games went 3D and the Japanese lore just became the main Sonic Cannon worldwide it was still called Earth starting with Sonic Colors become a little more ambiguous and Sonic's world will be the center of my interplanetary theme park whatever Sonic's world is 2010 was clearly meant to be a clean slate for this series the incredibly positive reception to Sonic Colors cemented that direction so this time around Dr Eggman apparently feeling remorseful for his past transgressions has built a giant Interstellar amusement park at Sonic and tales have snuck into as Sonic believes something must be afoot is correct because Eggman is attached several planets to the main Hub of the park and transformed him into theme park rides eggman's true goal was to get Planet whisper far off Planet that's home to the Wisps a race of aliens possessing incredible power called hyper goons which the doctor wants to use to power his planet-wide mind control Beam for that reason he's rounding up wisps on mass and using them to power all his machines as Sonic sets out to rescue them being able to use their power to perform new abilities as each type of wisp can pull off different Feats like the cyan laser wisp that Sonic can use to fly forward and Ricochet off of walls or the orange rocket wisp that can blast into the sky Sonic and Tails specifically befriend a white wisp called yakker needing Tails as Miles Electric tablet to translate his and the other wisps alien language by the end Eggman is converting the Wisps into these negative wisps called Purple frenzy wisps or purple void wisps but we'll get into that in a second as Sonic puts a stop to it all in a battle against the doctor's final Mech the egg Nega wisp armor as the station is destroyed in a giant explosion but the trapped planets are set free and the Wisps can return home thankful to Sonic for everything he's done even saving him from the explosion as he couldn't outrun it on his own another Simple Story concluded however it's the canonicity of Sonic Colors where things get interest interesting Sonic Colors like many games before it had two versions the main Series game is without question Sonic team's version on the Wii however it dims the developer of the Sonic Advance and Sonic Rush games had developed a DS version of Sonic colors that launched alongside the game Sonic team did while it may seem like an easy thing to ignore like I had done for Sonic 1 in The Game Gear I don't think we should write off Sonic colors in the DS quite like that because it's not the same story but presented worse like say Generations on 3DS are Unleashed on Wii the DS version of Sonic Colors is the exact same plot but without the focus on humor instead being more to the point which isn't really an argument in its favor or against it in terms of Canon but then you have the fact that Sonic Colors DS fleshes out the theme park by populating the attractions with Sonic characters something that didn't happen on the Wii which made the whole thing feel pretty empty these characters lead to non-essential moments but ones that make it feel like you're still in the Sonic world for example eggman's new lackeys Orbot and cubot are tasked with capturing wisps but they accidentally go after cheese the chow and you help cream by stopping them colors on DS being the first time silver and Blaze interact in Timeline b as the two acknowledge that they work well together and perhaps they once did things like that which serve to add more meat under the bones of colors but that's not all Ds colors has exclusive wisps like the red burst wisp or the purple void Wisp and while you could say these differences would be tossed out because it's the secondary version of colors the burst wisp would later appear in Sonic forces as one of the Avatar's wispawn abilities and as if that wasn't good enough evidence that there was something here this will do it while Sonic colors in the Wii did not have a supersonic battle or involve the chaos emeralds in the story whatsoever the DS game is a different story you can collect the emeralds in the special stages and then after the wisp armor is defeated you unlock the true final boss of Colors DS with a mother wisp a figure not included nor mentioned at all in the Wii game is corrupted with negative wisp energy herself as supersonic defeats this form of the mother whisper turning her to normal which brings the story to a close the mother wisp returns in the background of Team Sonic racing which is Canon and we'll talk about it later but then that begs the question am I outright saying that the DS version of colors is Canon well when I first conceived of this video I did go in thinking I was going to say that because of this evidence but then one thing got in my way this moment from Sonic Lost World been looking for you baldy mcnaugh's hair this calls back to the translator not functioning right in Sonic Colors that's the best thing I've heard all day I gotta remember that one I searched the script of colors on DS but this interaction never happened but clearly as Canon and lost world and Frontiers so where does that leave us well I've reached a new conclusion rather than simply stating that one version of colors is Canon over another instead I'm going to do what I had done with the 90s games and headcan in it to fill in the holes since both versions feature the same exact main plot we could simply say that what Colors DS added like the burst wisp the extra character cut scenes and the mother wisp all happened we just didn't see them in the Wii game it was off screen just imagine a fully 3D version of these cutscenes and this boss fight and you're good having said all that we can safely play Sonic Colors after Sonic and the Black Knight with no issues but then you get Sonic Generations the Sonic game that after deliberating on it I realize is my favorite Sonic game of all time this was the 20th anniversary celebration as you ran through nine of the best stages from Sonic's history as not just modern Sonic but also Classic Sonic the original designs of Sonic fused together to represent the series in the 90s modern Sonic playing like Sonic Unleashed and Sonic colors and classic sonic levels were inspired by the games in the Genesis it's just a fun game with minimal padding or poor content it's a straightforward good time one that is light on story though Eggman was trapped in outer space following the ending of Sonic Colors until he stumbled upon a force unlike anything he'd ever seen the time meter which Eggman uses to unlist the help of his younger self and the two use the time meter to destroy all of Sonic's past victories which first begins with Classic Sonic who's running through Green Hill Zone and has caught in the effects of the time meter fast forward to the present and Sonic is celebrating his birthday with his friends as the time meter blasts through history warping Sonic to a Timeless void where he has to play through these old levels and fight old bosses to rescue his friends with the help of his younger self Gathering the emeralds along the way ending with super modern Sonic and Super Classic Sonic destroying the time meter putting an end to the latest Eggman scheme as the two doctors get trapped in white space themselves no idea how they got out of that one as the game ends by back at the birthday party with Classic Sonic and classic Tales given a portal back to their time ending Sonic Generations in terms of the game's actual story that is genuinely it I said it was light on plot after all this is even less material than colors the plot of the game feels undercooked as the rest of the cast do nothing but appear in these tiny cutscenes after each stage this game was definitely more about the gameplay than most of the games up to that point with the story stating it takes place right after Sonic Colors we will place this game from modern Sonic's perspective right after colors but where this matter gets more intriguing is in relation to how it goes from classic Sonic's perspective classic Sonic's appearance in Generations was meant to be a one-off however he became a recurring character in two of the later games so the implications of Generations on the games I discussed in part 1 is worth going into here's what we know this is a version of Sonic who knows Tails meaning that from the perspective of our timeline Sonic 1 Sonic CD and the 8-Bit Sonic 2 have all taken place however Dr Robotnik does not know Knuckles nor does he recognize the modern look that Amy has so therefore I'm going to say that this Sonic has yet to experience Sonic 3 but on that note Sonic 2 goes right into Sonic 3. so I'm going to say that generations for classic Sonic takes place between Sonic chaos and Sonic 2 on the Genesis why that specifically well while Sonic 1 2 on Game Gear and Sonic chaos all take place on south island and classic sonic was pulled into this story from Green Hill Zone located on south island so we could then say that this is the moment he gets roped into the story now that would mean Classic Sonic had never face the Death Egg Robot before I had not gone supersonic yet and yeah that works for me but the discussion doesn't stop there though this creates a split in the timeline as a result of classic Sonic's traveling to the Future one where Generations takes place and then goes to Sonic 2. this is what I'm going to call the neo classic timeline a world where classic Sonic's Adventures play out largely like we saw them in the main timeline but they don't lead to Sonic Adventure things go slightly differently I would say the second most confusing part of Sonic's history behind the Eggman Nega situation in the Russian Rivals games is the world of classic Sonic when Classic Sonic returned in Sonic Mania and Sonic forces we were told this was the same Classic Sonic from Sonic Generations only now he isn't from Sonic's past it comes from another dimension that is classic Sonic themed so while the classic Adventures were still Canon to the main time I've been discussing there is a separate world where sa1 doesn't happen and we get more Classic Sonic stuff it's in this case where I feel like official statements help but can be freely tossed out if it allows the timeline to make more sense like I said in part one the people who officially run Sonic and just have whatever games they want made and then the people whose job it is to promote Sonic explain it in a way that makes sense at that moment in time then it's up to us to make sense of it but it could all be changed later generations set outright that it was a time travel story horses playing it to where Classic Sonic was always From Another World recently it was stated that now it's been changed to where there is no Classic Sonic World at all and that Mania enforces from the perspective of classic Sonic are just part of the past in the main timeline this directly contradicts what's in those games so how do I make sense of it personally well I'm taking a little bit of everything in order to keep the timeline making sense I don't think Sonic Mania is Canon to modern Sonic's timeline for reasons I'll discuss when we get to that game in a few moments so I'm going in with the explanation that Generations creates a split timeline for classic Sonic that runs alongside the main timeline we've been discussing another world from a certain point of view after Generations Sonic 2 is next in the timeline then Sonic 3 and Knuckles and triple trouble but now we can add games from the 90s back into the lore that I left behind in part one starting with knuckles as chaotix in the 32x this game is one I tossed out in the main timeline because it debuted the chaotics but Sonic Heroes rebooted them completely and later games stuck with the Hero's chaotix but in a timeline where things aren't leading to sa1 you don't have to worry about it said a few months after 3K and triple trouble Knuckles teams up with SBO Charmy vector and mighty the armadillo to stop the doctor and Metal Sonic from using the Chaos Rings on a new island that has come up from the sea Sonic and Tails must have been on vacation this month or something this is one of the more obscure Sonic games released in the 32x an add-on for the Genesis that sold supremely poorly and the game has never been re-released not even once I think it's because the game is terrible I can't think of one reason it would never be included in a compilation besides that it looks like the classic Sonic games but it's just so boring to play with its 25 samey stages where you wander around looking for the goal post not doing any platforming or going fast or anything it's no good this one so from this point you then have the games I discussed in part one tail Sky Patrol and Sonic Labyrinth we can take advantage of this time that Sonic and Tails are on separate Adventures toss in another game I left out in part one Sega Sonic the Hedgehog an arcade game from 1993 where you used a trackball to control Sonic through deadly traps as he's been captured by Rob alongside two new characters Mighty the armadillo who later appeared in Knuckles As chaotix and with them is Rey the Flying Squirrel I've never played this game as it was arcade only but I'm mentioning it here because Mighty and Rey are exclusive to the neo classic Sonic timeline as stated by izuka himself back in 2017 when Mania was a few months away from release which will become relevant later I promise Sega song doesn't have much going on I just needed to bring it up to establish that Mighty and Rey exist another arcade game I skipped over before was Sonic the fighters released in 1996 built off the engine of sega's other game Virtual Fighter and it certainly looks it not in a derogatory way I'm just saying this game looks like some mid-90s 3D and I find it pretty Charming this one I have played first being re-released in the Sonic Gems Collection on the GameCube but then getting its own PS3 and Xbox 360 port in 2012. not sure why this game of all things got that but it's pretty fun in a simplistic way as you fight against other Sonic characters in a tournament with these really cartoony sound effects and animations the reason being that Robotnik has launched a new Death Egg and Tails rocket has only one seat so the characters decide the only natural course of action is to fight against each other to see who will board the shuttle each character granting the Victor your chosen character a Chaos Emerald as you end the game with a battle against Metal Sonic and Dr Robotnik this game debuted new characters being the dynamite a duck who's proficient in explosives and bark the polar bear easily the most difficult character to beat in the game bang also returns from triple trouble one of his few appearances outside of that game Espio is included so this game can only be included in a world where chaotix is Canon so here we are the only odd thing with this game is that there are eight chaos emeralds in it but the game is structured in a way where you have to fight every character in a set order when you reach the spot where you'd fight the character you're playing as you have to fight a clone of that character made by Robotnik this is how you get the eighth Emerald so I say we can just pretend that doesn't happen and proceed like normal placing this game after Sega Sonic and before the last couple Classic Sonic games Sonic 3D Blast Sonic Blast and Sonic R which we went over in part one finally leading the First new game in the neo classic timeline Sonic mania this time Robotnik has found a magical Rock buried an angel island called The Phantom Ruby which has the ability to alter reality used in the game to turn these egg Robos into a group called The hard-boiled Heavies as Sonic Tails and Knuckles fight against them the Phantom Ruby warping reality to where the trio must run through areas from South Island West Side Island little planet and Angel Island like Green Hill Zone chemical plant zones Stardust Speedway and hydro City Zone and more alongside new areas while this game doesn't have much plot instead focusing on being a perfect throwback to the old games in a gameplay sense it's many references to the history of classic Sonic are the linchpin and the whole neo classic timeline for example in Mirage Saloon you battle against the heavy magician who can create Illusions in the boss fight she uses this power to look like Fang bean and bark confirming that Sonic the fighters is a game to include in this new timeline then in Stardust Speedway you race against Metal Sonic but he transforms into Metal Sonic Kai at the end of it this was the final boss of knuckles's chaotix so that game is also one I added for that reason at the end of the game Dr Robotnik gets into a battle with the heavy King over the Phantom Ruby as Sonic becomes Super Sonic to fend them both off but this caused is a reaction where the Phantom Ruby opens up a portal that pulls Sonic inside of it a cliffhanger for the good ending of Sonic Mania that was meant to lead into the game that was coming out in a couple months time from then Sonic forces where Classic Sonic was set to appear once more however to discuss Sonic forces we have to go back to the main timeline and work our way there with modern Sonic who we last left off at Sonic Generations the very next game was Sonic Lost World on the Wii U in 2013. never liked this one back when it came out always thought it was a boring Mario clone with Sonic elements in it and had a pretty conflicted story that tried to do too much and too small a time but hey that does mean this segment will be short Sonic and Tails are seen chasing after Eggman who's once again assisted by Orbot and cubot Eggman is back to his roots of collecting Animals by putting them in bad Nicks but this Chase leads to the Lost hex a floating collection of hexagons that all have different environments grasslands deserts beaches forests volcanoes and flying dessert the Lost hex is home to the zetti or the Deadly Six zavok zaz Xena zorazomam and zik and these folks are under the command of Eggman via the magic conch shell until Sonic punts it into the stratosphere year as the Deadly Six then turn on Eggman and plan on using his machines to completely drain the world of all its resources and energy destroying all life on Earth causing Sonic and Tails to team up with Eggman to put a stop to it along the way tails is captured by the six and they try turning him into a robot but he reprograms the machine while they aren't looking to make that not happen and once the zedy are defeated Eggman fights Sonic and loses the world is saved Sonic and Tails go home and Sonic takes a nap ending Sonic Lost World lost world is another one of those very self-contained stories however we know it's after Sonic Colors because of the joke I mentioned earlier but would also be after Generations because colors leads into that game the Deadly Six never really caught on as a team in my opinion it was because the game doesn't do much with them outside of being Boss characters with a single sentence or even single word personality however zavok himself would become a recurring character in the games going forward so that's something that has come from Sonic Lost World the game that goes right after Generations in the timeline leading to Sonic forces we did just skip from 2013 to 2017 and that's because in between we had the sonic boom brand that also never took off despite the three years of time dedicated to it but on PS4 Xbox One and switch Sonic team was back with Sonic forces and this time was going to be returned to the bigger stories from the games of old Eggman has found the perfect way to take over the world this time the Phantom Ruby which he finds in his doorstep one day this being the version of the Phantom Ruby from the main timeline in the classic timeline it was used by Robotnik and Mania Eggman fuses it with a mercenary called infinite The Jackal and with their combined strength they're going to take over the world overpowering and capturing Sonic as infinite uses the Phantom Ruby not only to become powerful himself but creates illusions of Shadow Metal Sonic zavok and Chaos that Sonic has to contend with infinite was once a regular mercenary hired by Eggman but got beat by Shadow the Hedgehog so badly that he was desperate for more power which was revealed in the DLC chapter called episode Shadow six months after Sonic's defeat the rest of the cast Knuckles Amy Tails Rouge silver and the chaotix work to fight against the Eggman Empire which has taken over 99 of the world as a new recruit joins their ranks following his survival from one of infinite's attacks this is your custom character he can look in a pair or however you want and I shall refer to him as the Avatar The Avatar is tasked with rescuing Sonic from the Death Egg which brings Sonic back into the fight meanwhile Tails gets attacked by chaos but at that moment a phantom Ruby portal opens up as Classic Sonic comes through to save the day you play as modern Sonic Classic Sonic and the Avatar to take back the world from Eggman sounds cool and all but this game's main issue is that the plot is very rushed cut scenes feeling too short to give the plot much time to breathe and despite the shorter running time and more focused premise some things still don't make sense like in the games that had more complicated stories such as Shadow just showing up to reveal that the Phantom Ruby projects physical Illusions it's never explained how he went from beating up infinite a few months ago to then hearing of infinite's plan right before the game to going AWOL for six months but either way at this moment the heroes stand no chance against the Phantom Ruby until they find a way to nullify its power but by that point the doctor has activated his final scheme of creating a virtual son to kill everyone as the heroes lead an assault on eggman's Imperial Tower but they shut down that sun thing in the nick of time and Sonic fights infinite alongside the avatar they couldn't beat him alone but together they could the one thing infinite lacked as infinite is then absorbed into the Phantom Ruby I think eggman's final Mech is fully powered by the Phantom Ruby as the sonics along with the Avatar destroy it saving the world as Classic Sonic has returned to where he belongs while the rest of the cast can look towards fixing the Damage Done by the Eggman Empire the Avatar taking off to Parts Unknown once all is said and done with it being the next game and because zavok is used as a phantom Ruby illusion we can safely slot this game right after Sonic Lost World and then right after Sonic Mania and classic Sonic's timeline and while we're there we should wrap that up following forces we got several things related to Sonic Mania including YouTube shorts called Sonic Mania adventures and a physical edition of the game called Sonic Mania plus the first episode of mania adventure shows classic Sonic's return from forces however Sonic Mania plus included a new Mode called Encore mode which also shows classic Sonic's returns from forces where he then teams up with Mighty and Rey who are back in the games now alongside Tails and Knuckles to travel through altered versions of the stages to once again stop the Phantom Ruby from being misused if you remember the rules I outlined at the very beginning this video concerns games only so therefore Mania Encore mode takes precedent going after forces in the neoclassic timeline which is the last we're going to hear that timeline for the rest of the video so now we can just focus on the main timeline with modern Sonic for the final two games first up team Sonic racing this is a game I've never played I didn't like Lost World when it came out I hated the boom stuff and thought forces was pretty lame as well so therefore I decided to not pick up team Sonic racing since I didn't think it'd looked very good either however it included a story mode where the heroes are in a car racing competition run by a Tanuki called dadan PA who may seem suspicious but is actually above board and Eggman is the villain again the cast is divided into teams of three like usual in this series I bring it up because zavok is seen on eggman's team and this is the real zavok unlike forces the games never really say what happened to the other deadly 6 members and more importantly that zavok no longer has a vendetta against Eggman like he did in Sonic Lost World but despite that the plot of this one was confirmed Canon first in the encyclospedia as one of its race tracks has wreckage from the war and forces and then it's mentioned in Sonic Frontiers so that means we can put this game right between Sonic forces and finally Sonic Frontiers since this game just came out I'll again issue a spoiler warning skip to this time stamp to get past it the opening cut scene of Frontier shows Eggman on the Starfall Islands interacting with some cyberspace technology that traps him inside of it as he relies on his cyber program turned life form called sage by watching the frontier's prologue animation on YouTube you can then see that Knuckles found some ruins on Angel Island that were also part of this same system that brought him head to head with the technology of the Ancients and Sage herself as knuckles also gets trapped in cyberspace the chaos emeralds were drawn to the Starfall Islands as Sonic Tails and Amy set out to explore them which results in them being sent to cyberspace where Sonic escapes and is told by a voice in the sky that he can rescue his friends by collecting the chaos hormones and becoming Super Sonic to defeat the Titans that guard every island Sonic Frontiers is the first game in a while to feel like it's part of an ongoing series I mean this is the first solid team game in a long time where they try to make past events relevant to the characters in the present the first game in a while to use the chaos and mode and supersonic has important parts of the story the first game in a very long time that tries delivering Lori that further fleshes out our understanding of the Sonic Universe throughout the game we learn about the ancients from tens of thousands of years ago descending from another planet they used the power of the chaos emeralds to battle against a malevolent Force called the end fleeing their home and arriving on Earth drawn to the power of the Master Emerald which is apparently a separate entity from the chaos emeralds entirely but at the end had followed the Ancients to Earth and the Titans they created couldn't stop the end so they sealed it in cyberspace which they created the player can unlock these memos that Eggman recorded while he was in cyberspace and it's here where we learned that writers is evidently Canon and all the other tidbits that I went over in part two but he also talks about how the Ancients with the distant ancestors of chaos the Ancients migrated to Angel Island and due to radiation devolved into the Chao and has established chaos was a mutated Chao himself now the Ancients bring in the emeralds to Earth from another planet tens of thousands of years ago Works in theory until you remember that Unleashed claimed that dark and Light Gaia fought for millions of years with the temples in the emeralds but if you just headcan in the Ancients to predict date that then you're good the Ancients left behind in the Starfall Islands have their Spirits represented by the Cocos that you helped during the game putting their Spirits at ease while in cyberspace Eggman is protected from all the threats by Sage who he starts to feel a father-like affection for realizing he created intelligent life although by that metric I feel like he'd be pretty proud of Metal Sonic but that's neither here nor there as in the end the voice guiding Sonic actually was the end who did help Sonic free his friends with the catchers at the end is freed from cyberspace as Supersonic and Sage team up to destroy the thing and while I thought the final boss was kind of a mess all these energy beams going all over the screen the moment was pretty cool as you get I'm here then the new vocal themes playing in the background this game has plenty of cool vocal themes but this one took the cake for me but in the end Sage sacrificing herself saddening Eggman to the point where he's seen in the post-credits scene finding a way to bring her back online while the heroes stood off for the next adventure ending Sonic Frontiers the latest game in the series so the final game in the timeline as of 2022 with that said I suppose it's time to wrap things up in conclusion what did we learn here is Sonic the Hedgehog The Greatest Story Ever Told no not at all in fact half of this video Saga was spent filling holes with headcanon when things stopped making sense as early as the very beginning of the franchise nobody working on the physics system of Sonic 1 in 1991 had any idea that this would become a series about God monsters and time travel and different dimensions and planets or any of that other stuff but the franchise slowly evolved into those things as time went on at the beginning of this video series I said that while I think of the reason we're wasting oxygen on the topic of Sonic lore I was going to present it to you when I wrote that line it was just supposed to be a joke to get us into the video knowing the futility of the topic but here I am at the end and I realize what the reason was it's not because I'm here to convince anyone that Sonic needs to be preserved alongside the works of Shakespeare it's because it's the ultimate tribute to the series that I could do thinking back on it why did I like Sonic as a kid it wasn't even the sense of speed or replayability or any of that those are things I enjoy about the games now but back then it was purely about the characters in the world they inhabited there was no series quite like it doing such epic quests with these well-designed and fun characters Sonic was just a unique blend of different elements and that mixture was something really special there still isn't a series like Sonic the name of the retrospective is Sonic is distinctive that's something I've been saying since 2020. my reasoning as to why has evolved in those last two and a half years but right now I see it like this Sonic is a franchise with a unique talent for inspiring people to talk about it share their memories with it and make new ones entirely through fan works the Sonic fan base is produced an infamously large amount of toxicity but also a lot of beauty via art and fan games and such the franchise has such a unique ability to survive disaster after disaster because of those characters and that world that people got sucked into when they were a kid that keeps them loyal to the brand even when things might not go in the direction you like I don't like every gamer to spend the last two and a half hours going over some of them I was borderline making fun of while writing about them but the series is cool there is nothing quite like it as I said so that's why I did this project I fill up my reviewing forces and Frontiers wouldn't be a fitting end to this year's long journey of talking about Sonic on my channel now I wanted to do something big by paying tribute to the thing that made me love Sonic to begin with the kind of video series I would have eaten up when I was eight years old treating every game as though they were equally valid despite some being blatantly goofy budget unfinished or whatever or if they were serious genre defining Classics since I liked the Sonic series and I thought there would be no better way to end the Sonic era of Jay's reviews than this I'm not done talking about Sonic forever since like I said I'm still a fan and I'll still cover whatever games they do next I want to talk about the multimedia Sonic projects that have existed over the decades and perhaps keep talking about the fan games especially po6 I mean I'm chomping at the bit to play that Silver release but before I get ahead of myself I'm just saying that now we're pretty much done covering all the games I'm pretty content with the work I did over these last two years as we keep moving forward with the channel covering games I'm just as if not plenty more passionate about than this if you made it this far into the video and have been following the Sonic retrospective for however long you have been I'll say what I always do thank you all for watching and I will see you next time

Channel: J's Reviews

Views: 391,795

Keywords: sonic timeline, sonic the hedgehog, sonic the hedgehog timeline, sonic, 3d sonic timeline, complete sonic timeline, the complete sonic timeline, timeline, classic sonic timeline, sonic generations, sonic timelines, sonic origins, sonic 3 timelines, sonic forces, sonic theory, sonic lore, metal sonic, sonic adventure, sonic mania, sonic 3, sonic 2, sonic colors, sonic frontiers, sonic animation, sonic timeline theory, sonic split timeline, sonic mania timeline

Id: nmw8NsDpS4o

Length: 146min 53sec (8813 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 17 2023