Sonic Pocket Adventure released on the Neo Geo Pocket Colour in January 2000,
and is the single most important game in the series' timeline.
See, Eggman begins with his classic design, then changes into his modern design partway through the game,
while Sonic and his friends resemble their classic counterparts, but with their modern eye colours.
As such, this is the true transitional game between the two styles, taking place between Sonic R and Sonic 4.
There, are you happy now?
Welcome to A LINE THROUGH T⌛ME, where I take the time to look through Sonic Pocket Adventure and work out how it all lines up.
Now that I've finally taken my life back,
I can revisit the Sonic series properly and see how things have changed since last July,
so be sure you've seen that episode before watching this one.
First, I need to address some baffling misconceptions.
1. The cartoons and Archie comics are not canonical.
No, not even Sonic X.
In fact, the ones that adapt storylines from the games are even more obviously separate canons.
2. Sonic Boom is not canonical.
It is not a prequel or sequel hundreds of years removed from the core series,
though that's certainly more believable than these being the same versions of the characters.
"Sonic's arms are not freaking blue!"
And no, I'm not covering Boom this time either. I will in the future, but not today.
3. Sonic '06 IS canonical.
Regardless of whether or not it was intended as a hard reboot, as some claim without sources,
the game is part of Generations alongside games from before and after it.
Even though the events were erased from the timeline, it wasn't erased from canon,
else the remnants of Crisis City would not exist in Generations.
4. Mania's inclusion of a Mean Bean Machine minigame doesn't make said game canonical.
It was a non-Sonic game that was made Sonic-related outside of Japan and never mentioned again.
5. Yes, Mecha Sonic from Sonic 2 coming before Metal Sonic from Sonic CD, rather than later, would make more sense,
but it's been officially confirmed that CD comes before 2, so that doesn't matter.
Plus, who's to say Mecha was made after?
Maybe Eggman made Mecha first purely to defend his bases like the Death Egg,
and had to rely on it and Silver Sonic while he worked on Metal 2.0?
Like all that bullshit in MK2011 with Quan Chi, Scorpion, Noob and the revenants?
6. I was NOT saying that Eggman Nega is the same age as Silver.
Nega's birth had a big fat fucking "Circa" before it. Meaning "about".
He was born around that time but we don't know when.
I mean, Jesus, I thought the BS/AS people had problems.
7. It's been suggested that the Riders series may take place at the end of the timeline,
due to the futuristic city setting and the absence of the Babylon Rogues at Sonic's birthday party in Generations.
Interesting thought, but I disagree.
Futuristic cities are a general theme used in the series, as seen in the likes of Heroes and Forces.
Second, not everyone was at the party to begin with;
like Shadow, Silver, Big or Marine, who are all considered Sonic's friends.
Basically, it would seem that modern cities aren't used for the boarding events,
likely because of their specific architecture.
And as for the Rogues, they were probably busy or just uninterested, like Shadow presumably was.
With that out of the way, we can continue.
One game I missed was Flicky, an arcade game from 1984.
The game was ported to the Mega Drive and Master System three months ahead of the release of Sonic 1,
where the titular protagonist cameoed as one of the captive animals inside the capsules at the end of stages.
Flicky has continued to appear since, most notably in Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island, so we'll include this game too.
Since the game released before Sonic 1, this game can be placed ahead of every other game in the timeline,
a few months ahead of Sonic 1, as with the console release dates.
On a related note, I'd like to thank Marigi245 for delaying the video by telling me about Dynamite Dux,
a Sega AM2 beat 'em up from 1988. It's basically Double Dragon re-enacted with ducks.
When AM2 developed Sonic the Fighters in 1996, they created two original characters:
Bark the Polar Bear and Bean the Dynamite,
the latter of whom is clearly based on Bin and Pin from Dynamite Dux.
Apparently, Bean's bio in the Japanese Fighters Megamix Official Guide, he is actually Bin's son.
Given the apparent age gap, this would place Dynamite Dux at least a decade or two before the Sonic series,
thus placing it earlier than even Flicky.
Another game I missed was Sonic 2 on the Game Gear.
A surprising number of people brought this one up, and I realise it was a mistake to leave it off.
I assumed it was simply a port of the Mega Drive version, but with Tails having been abducted to explain only having Sonic playable due to space limitations.
But no, the zones are almost all new, so this is a separate story.
Given that Tails is abducted by Eggman and is incapable of fighting back, I'll place this
after Forces.
...Nah, I'm just kidding. I'm going to place it before Mega Drive 2, since Eggman sees Tails as enough of a threat to capture him,
but Tails isn't skilled enough to escape, which Sonic can train him up for before Mega Drive 2.
Alongside SegaSonic the Hedgehog, Sega released SegaSonic Cosmo Fighter in arcades in March '93, three months ahead of the former.
Eggman flees into space to capture animals up there somehow, so Sonic pursues in a spaceship.
There's not really anything to suggest where it takes place, beyond Tails being absent and Sonic having access to a spacecraft,
which means he must have gained fame at least on par with what he has by Sonic CD,
since he wouldn't know how to build one himself and would thus need to commandeer one.
So, we'll place it shortly before he met Tails.
Following the release of my Sonic Timeline video last July, Sega hosted a stream at E3
that was lifeless, fraught with technical issues, and existed solely to spend an hour
telling fans that there would be a big announcement for Sonic at Comicon.
Fuck you.
At this event, Sega announced two games to celebrate the 25th anniversary...
both of which would release in the year after the 25th anniversary.
Good job.
The first of these was Sonic Mania, a 2D nostalgia trip developed by Christian Whitehead,
a fangame maker who designed the mobile ports of Sonic 1, 2 and CD.
The story sees Eggman utilise a dimension-hopping gemstone called the Phantom Ruby that cause hallucinations that can kill.
"Your mind makes it real."
In the true ending, Sonic is taken along by the Phantom Ruby to appear in Sonic Forces,
the big Sonic Team release that sees Eggman conquer most of the planet with his new enforcer, Infinite.
There's a lot to unpack with this one.
First of all, given the imagery and the idea that Eggman has taken over, many fans concluded immediately that
this game is set right after Sonic Chronicles, where Eggman had taken over while Sonic and friends were away.
We'll come back to this later.
After Sonic is seemingly killed in the opening stage, the story jumps forward six months.
There, Knuckles is leading the resistance, which includes a player-created original character and Silver.
Silver's presence goes unexplained in the game, but he presumably is now from a future in which the Eggman Dynasty rules.
How is this possible, after Silver claimed his future was bright in the DS version of Colours?
Well, either that's non-canon, being from the alternate version of Colours, or the time-travel events of Generations changed the past.
After all, Silver said this during Colours, which preceded Generations.
But being present during Generations, Silver was removed from his home time while
it was rewritten by the very events he was taking part in.
Either way, there is a more pressing matter that needs addressing here: Classic Sonic.
Classic Sonic returns in this game and doesn't do much in the story. When he arrives, Tails says:
"Oh! You're that Sonic from another dimension, aren't you?"
an idea later backed up by Eggman.
But when Modern Sonic meets him later, he says:
"It's been generations since I've seen you."
suggesting that this is the same Classic Sonic from Generations.
So, what, are they saying that Generations was about alternate realities now?
I know that the series has a history of mixing up time travel and parallel universes, but
you can't just do that here, because Generations' entire concept was based around time travel.
Very explicitly!
The only ways this can work are:
1. Time alterations create tangent timelines, allowing the old timeline to continue to exist,
rather than being supplanted outright.
This then technically makes those alternate timelines alternate universes.
2. Sonic is simply saying he hasn't seen himself in his classic look in a while, and that this Sonic could be someone else.
The former would mean that the extra timelines created by Sonic '06 are still around, which no, I refuse.
Plus, if this was how time alteration worked, Sonic and Elise would have been left ten years in the past when they erased Iblis,
and Elise of the following timeline wouldn't have had any sensation of déjà vu during the parade;
nor would any of the heroes remember the events of '06, which some are canonically stated to be capable of doing;
nor would Crisis City still be around in Generations if that game's timeline was disconnected from Silver's '06 future.
The latter would mean there are two incarnations of Classic Sonic:
the past self of Earth-1 Sonic from Generations,
and Earth-2 Sonic from Mania and Forces.
Who knows, maybe Earth-2 is where all the portable versions take place.
I feel that this idea holds up the best, due to later revelations, so I'm going with it.
The fourth playable character was added in the Day-1 Episode Shadow DLC.
This explains the underwhelming origin of Infinite two months before the game, and leads directly into the game.
What it doesn't explain, though, is where Shadow is for six months to allow people to think he's joined
Infinite's cabal of doppelgängers, which you'd think would be the point of the DLC, but no.
Additionally, a four-issue comic series written by Ian Flynn of the now cancelled Archie comics
released in the weeks leading up to the game as a canonical prequel.
Named simply Sonic Forces, the comic features a series of short stories following
a coward in the resistance stepping up to the plate,
Silver and Knuckles fighting a copy of Chaos (and confirming that Silver is indeed back from the future to change the timeline)
Omega's encounter with Infinite that leads into the Shadow DLC,
and Eggman's discovery of the Phantom Ruby and recruiting the still unexplored mercenary group led by Infinite.
Now, the second issue has Knuckles just chilling on Angel Island when Silver arrives,
with no idea that anything's going on with Eggman.
How could this be the case if he was on the ship at the end of Chronicles and saw the Eggman Empire with his own eyes?
This one detail prevents Chronicles from tying in to Forces.
An alternative that's been suggested is that Chronicles actually leads into the intro of Unleashed,
where Sonic is in the process of dealing with an Eggman incident already in progress.
In fact, Chronicles released two months before Unleashed,
in a not-too-dissimilar manner to Mania and Forces, which do lead directly into one another.
I did say last time that years pass on Earth while the heroes are away during Chronicles,
but it was mostly just an observation by Sonic about how things look.
Really, there's nothing concrete to say that Eggman isn't just really, really efficient
and that not much time has passed at all.
And so the game could probably fit quite comfortably before Unleashed.
Presumably, the heroes use the ship to gather the emeralds and leave the final fight to Sonic,
while they go off to dismantle the rest of Eggman's conquest.
What then happens to Shade is anyone's guess.
Issue 4 also gives us a key detail:
Eggman found the Phantom Ruby when it appeared outside his front door.
He is in his modern design, and has Cubot and Model 2 Orbot with him, setting this is after Unleashed, at the very least.
He didn't originally obtain the Ruby as Classic Eggman, even if we accept time travel shenanigans from Generations.
This also leaves us with two possibilities:
1. Mania takes place in a parallel universe and the Phantom Ruby appeared there before moving on to the main universe.
2. Eggman obtained the Ruby between Unleashed and Generations, and secretly passed it on
to his past self during Generations to take back with him and work on it much earlier.
Given that Eggman doesn't use the ruby during Generations,
and the fact that he hired Infinite's Jackal Squad soon after he found the Ruby,
and that they don't appear in Generations or Lost World, this seems unlikely.
The best explanation, when taking all of this into account is this:
The Phantom Ruby is a dimension-hopping artefact that arrives on Earth-2,
where Eggman discovers it around 12AS (which means After Sonic, you incompetent fools!).
He utilises it during Sonic Mania, ending with the Ruby pulling a Darkspark and heading to Earth-1, dragging Sonic along with it.
The Ruby lands outside Earth-1 Eggman's base, and flings Sonic off elsewhere.
Being lost in an unfamiliar world, Earth-2 Sonic is unable to assist until after his counterpart's alleged death.
When the two Sonics meet and Earth-1 Sonic says
"It's been generations since I've seen you."
he's not referring to "The Generations Incident";
just a hyperbolic acknowledgement of the time that's passed since he's seen a Classic Sonic.
Earth-2 Sonic may have even been through his own Generations incident to explain him not being confused at all by this.
This could even explain what I concluded was two different Metal Sonics, but I'll save that discussion for another day.
There's no explanation for the portal he arrives through to save Tails from Chaos 0
(because defeating Chaos 4 isn't reason enough to assume you can best Chaos 0, apparently!)
unless the resistance gets around the world via teleporter technology that we just don't see.
Nor is there an explanation for Infinite claiming Sonic has been defeating Eggman for "decades".
Regardless of what the writers think the games are about, Sonic is still labelled as 15; not 35.
Again, we have to accept this as a gross hyperbole.
It's not a perfect - or even particularly satisfying - explanation,
but it's the best I can do when the fucking writers can't keep the story straight.
Sonic Forces: Speed Battle has no story.
I only bring that up because I know other people will if I don't.
In between the two big releases, came Sonic Runners Adventure in June.
Despite being a sequel to Sonic Runners, this one has a fixed single storyline, rather than a number of side stories.
Eggman is using another mind control ray, which is like his fourth one,
which he's already used on Tails by the time the game starts because that poor fucker just can't catch a break.
Team Sonic smash it and Eggman flees.
As a sequel to Runners, but not set in Eggman's dystopia, this one comes between Runners and Forces.
So, with that, this is the revised, 2017 version of the Sonic timeline.
It was equal parts fun and frustrating to revisit this series,
and I look forward to the next big fuck-up of the timeline in a few years' time.
And since this is it for Series 2,
the internal Sonic Forces timeline goes a little something,
like this...
Earth-2 (I messed up)
12AS
The Phantom Ruby appears on Angel Island.
Dr. Robotnik obtains the Ruby and uses it to battle Sonic.
Sonic defeats Robotnik and is taken by the Phantom Ruby to another dimension.
Earth-1
16AS
The Phantom Ruby arrives at Dr. Eggman's Arsenal Pyramid, leaving Sonic stranded elsewhere.
Soon after, the Jackal Squad attacks the base, but is defeated by the Ruby's power.
Eggman hires the squad to assist in his newest scheme.
He tests the Ruby's power by manifesting a doppelgänger of Chaos on Angel Island.
The Jackal Squad engages Shadow when he attacks a base, but are wiped out.
The leader receives the Phantom Ruby, becoming Infinite.
Two months later, he defeats Omega, traps Shadow in a construct of Green Hill, and defeats Sonic.
Eggman quickly conquers the majority of the planet.
17AS
Sonic is executed, ensuring Eggman's victory.
215AS
The Eggman Empire persists into the future, presumably ruled over by Eggman Nega.
Silver travels back in time to stop Eggman's victory.
Timeline #13
16AS
Silver arrives on Angel Island during the Phantom Ruby's test phase.
He convinces Knuckles to form an official resistance force against Eggman.
After Sonic's defeat, the resistance continues the battle against Eggman.
17AS
The Chaotix help defend a city from Eggman's air assault.
Big the Cat is assassinated by one of Eggman's mercenaries.
Six months after Sonic's defeat, a new recruit joins the resistance and helps to free Sonic.
The recruit and the two Sonic lead the resistance against Eggman and Infinite, defeating them both.
Earth-2 Sonic returns to his own universe,
while the others lead the way in rebuilding the world.
Now, before we wrap up, I think you guys need to know that there is a pretty huge retcon hidden in Sonic Forces.
It changes a detail that's remained consistent since 1999 or so,
and it disgusts me to no end that they changed it.
When you go into character customisation,
equipping certain items reveals that the anthropomorphic animal characters
now have toes.
Sonic characters have always been toeless in the games, but now they have them?
What the fuck, Sonic Team?
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If not, then make sure to share it with your enemies so they can suffer along with you.
I have to wonder if the grappling hook the avatar uses was inspired by the tether from Sonic Boom.
Maybe they did intend to have Boom Sonic as the third character, but then changed their minds in light of
... well, Boom.