Western Animation / Sonic Prime

The world he knows is about to shatter.

"I'm in a whole new place. And you're all new yous! Maybe I can change it all back..."

— Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic Prime is a 3DCG animated series hosted on Netflix based on the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, that debuted in winter 2022. It is developed by Man of Action Studios and WildBrain^note Formerly DHX Media. They also own the back catalogue of DiC Entertainment who previously created Sonic's first three cartoons (Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), and Sonic Underground) and is considered a Spiritual Successor to DiC. , and is the first Sonic series since Sonic Underground to be produced in Canada and the second to be an All-CGI Cartoon after Sonic Boom. It's the second collaboration between both companies on a video game-based property after Mega Man: Fully Charged.

While he and his friends are in the midst of an intense battle with Dr. Eggman over a mysterious artifact known as the Paradox Prism, Sonic recklessly shatters said crystal, causing the universe itself to shatter apart and sending him spiraling through new dimensions known as "Shatterspaces". Soon realizing the weight of his mistake, Sonic endeavors to travel across this "Shatterverse" and make things right, encountering various alternate versions of his friends that he must work hard to gain the trust of in order to have allies in his quest; all the while, he faces off against the Chaos Council, a group of various versions of Eggman who plan to conquer these new dimensions. The series also features themes of self-discovery and redemption.

Due to its Canada-based production, the series does not reprise the voice actors from the video games. The title character himself is voiced by Deven Mack. Other cast members include Ashleigh Ball as Tails, Shannon Chan-Kent as Amy, Brian Drummond as Dr. Eggman, Adam Nurada and Vincent Tong as Knuckles and his alternate versions, respectively, Ian Hanlin as Shadow and Big, and Kazumi Evans as Rouge.

The series debuted on Netflix on December 15, 2022, with the first episode premiering early on December 10, 2022, on Roblox, specifically on Sonic Speed Simulator.

A second season released on July 13, 2023. The third and final season was released on January 11, 2024.

An IDW published graphic novel adaptation written by Hayden Robel was announced to release in November 2024, covering the first two Episodes of Season 1.

Previews: First Look Big and Froggy, First Look Shadow the Hedgehog, Teaser Trailer 1, Teaser Trailer 2, Official Trailer, Season 2 Trailer, Season 3 Sneak Peek, Season 3 Clip, Season 3 Trailer

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Provides examples of:

• Acoustic License: In Season 3, Sonic's army and Nine can communicate perfectly by yelling despite being very far apart in both horizontal and vertical distance.
• Action Girl: The Roses. Prime!Amy is her usual self in combat, especially when Sonic is involved; Rusty is introduced as a No-Nonsense Nemesis and remains a proactive fighter after changing sides; Thorn is Hot-Blooded Forest Ranger who fiercely confronts any threats to her home; and Black is a Blood Knight eager to commit some real piracy.
• Actor Allusion: One of Dread's former crew mates is a pirate named Jack. He is voiced by Sean McLoughlin, A.K.A. Jacksepticeye.
• Adaptational Badass: Nine and each Shatterspace's "Rose" establish themselves as even tougher versions of the already-formidable Tails and Amy, respectively. However...
• Adaptational Jerkass:
  • Tails' New Yoke City counterpart, Nine, has a much more jaded and cynical personality, because he never had a Sonic to help him stave off his bullies, realize his twin tails' potential, and find friends; so he had to scrape by all on his own in the Chaos Council's Stalinist hellscape of a world. At the end of Season 2 (specifically at the last seconds of "Ghost of a Chance", Nine betrays Sonic after the latter defeated the prismatic Titan, and stole all the Prism Shards for himself to his place with Grim in mind, intending to make a new home out of the Paradox Prism altogether.
  • Pretty much all of Amy's alternate counterparts across the Shatterspaces we've seen thus far are at the very least rougher around the edges than the prime Amy. Black Rose is the nicest one short of the prime Amy, but she's a Blood Knight who's eager to commit some real piracy with what that entails; Thorn Rose is even more aggressive and willing to go to extremes when trying to protect her forest; and Rusty Rose is practically a cold Mirror Self who is serving the Chaos Council (until the betrayal, that is).
• Adaptational Modesty:
  • Amy's dress has been modified, dumping the open back and lowering the flair on her skirt, and Rouge has a brand-new outfit and a smaller bust.
    • This extends to their alternate selves. Rebel Rouge, for example, is in full clothing, and Rusty Rose...doesn't exactly have any skin left to show.
  • Nine (New Yoke Tails) is fully clothed after pretty much every other version of him having been an Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal. Considering that up-keeping that trope was one of Sega's bigger mandates, this is a big deal.
  • Rouge and her alternate universe counterparts wear a lot less fanservicey outfits than Rouge is often known to wear, as, while they are often still tight and form-fitting, they nevertheless cover her chest and rest of her body more.
  • Lampshaded in the first episode, when Sonic expresses shock at seeing New Yoke City Big wearing pants.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: The Paradox Prism.
• Advertised Extra:
  • While the primary poster for the show showcases Sonic alongside Nine and Renegade Knucks of New Yoke City, Thorn Rose of the Boscage Maze, and Batten Rouge of No Place, only the former 3 actually have a major role to play in the story of their worlds, as in No Place, it's Knuckles' counterpart Dread who's the main focus while Batten Rouge is only another part of Dread's crew. Similarly, the original Eggman hasn't shown up beyond the events before the Paradox Prism's destruction, with the Chaos Council of Eggman counterparts being the Big Bad Duumvirate.
  • The Prime versions of Sonic's friends and Eggman, which all disappear after the first episode and only show up in short flashbacks. The Season 2 premiere would confirm that they no longer exist anymore, and all that's left of them are lifeless ghosts that repeat the same line over and over again. They only return for real in the Season 3 finale, once everything has gone back to normal.
• All-CGI Cartoon: Similar to the franchise's previous animated series, Sonic Boom, the cartoon largely uses 3DCG computer-based animation with an art direction similar to the Modern games.
• Alliance of Alternates:
  • The Chaos Council is a subversion: they are, apparently, five versions of Eggman that rules New Yoke City together, but they don't consider each other alternate versions of themselves (their relationship is kind of a mystery) and are surprised by the existence of the Shatterspace.
  • Later, as of Season 2, the versions of Sonic's friends aided him in what's a downplayed example to help Sonic restore the reality as he (and Shadow) once knew, though Nine left at the end of said season.
  • In Season 3, Sonic and Shadow team up with the rest of the Shatterverse cast to stop Nine and his robotic Psycho Rangers before the former irreversably destroys all of reality.
• Alternative-Self Name-Change: In addition to new looks and backstories, the versions of Sonic's friends in the different universes have different names as well.
  • For example, in New Yoke Tails is called Nine, Amy is called Rusty Rose, Rouge is called Rebel Rouge, etc.
• Amplifier Artifact: The tech that Sonic is gifted by Nine stabilizes the Prism Energy that he generates, allowing him to travel through Shatterspaces easier than normal and additionally altering the appearance and effects of his equipment to an appropriate form for the Shatterspace he's in. Shadow learns the hard way that the tech doesn't do anything on its own, however; his attempt to steal it in "Avoid the Void" and use it to enter Shatterspaces fails due to him not possessing any Prism Energy to utilize. The Chaos Council later stole three (out of five) Prism Shards to not only power up whatever they desires, but conquer whatever Shatterspaces the respective Prisms are connected to.
• And the Adventure Continues: Green Hill is restored and the Paradox Prism is kept out of Eggman's hands forever. Just as Sonic was about to chow down with his friends, some new danger emerges, forcing them back into action.
• Apocalypse How: Breaking the Paradox Prism shatters the Prime universe into five alternate realities and a void, with each member of the cast (sans Sonic and Shadow) splintering likewise. The situation escalates to multiversal proportions as the Chaos Council and Nine abuse the Prism's power, shredding the fabric of reality until the Shatterspaces in their entirety begin to disintegrate. It takes a Heroic Sacrifice on Sonic's part to fully repair the Prism and undo the damaged caused, and once back in Green Hill, he avoids breaking it again and lets Shadow teleport it away, averting the whole incident.
• Arc Hero: In Season 1, Sonic shares the protagonist role with another character whenever he goes to a new Shatterspace. In New Yoke City, it's Nine; in Boscage Maze, it's Thorn Rose; and in No Place, it's Knuckles the Dread. It gets complicated in Season 2, though Shadow helps out.
• Arc Symbol: As Sonic is warped through Shatterspace after Shatterspace, he sees a sole palm tree just like the ones in Green Hill. It's implied to be the only thing unaffected by the destruction of the Paradox Prism. To some inhabitants, however, it's much more than that, as they do everything they can to take care of it or even protect it.
• Art Shift: Whenever Sonic has a flashback involving his friends, the scene shifts into a Retraux 16-bit pixel art, paying homages to the classic games.
• Ascended Extra: Downplayed, but in the games, Birdie was a one shot character that Amy protected. While the original Birdie is a blink and you'll miss it cameo, there are alternate versions of Birdie and even models in Nine's Grim soldiers.
• Asian Fox Spirit: In the New Yoke universe, Miles — who as a two-tailed fox was already based on the kitsune — is shown giving himself seven extra mechanized tails that double as Combat Tentacles, bringing him up to a total of nine. This coincides with his Meaningful Rename of "Nine", based on a legend of a kitsune gaining nine tails total upon reaching full maturity. His shadow in the recap of his backstory highlights his hardened nature, showing his usual two-tailed form before going to a menacingly posed nine-tailed version.
• Badass Boast:
  • It wouldn't be Sonic without him doling these out like candy on Halloween.
    • From the trailer:
      Sonic: You bring it, I break it, Eggman!
    • To Shadow, in a Comically/Dramatically Missing the Point moment:
      Sonic: I know what you're thinking. I'm good~! ...And powerful, apparently! Jealous?
  • Shadow's last line in the series, as he teleports the Paradox Prism away to keep it from being shattered or misused ever again:
    Shadow: I am the Ultimate Life Form. I go wherever I want. CHAOS CONTROL!
• Big Badass Battle Sequence: The series culminates in a Final Battle that's so massive, it's three episodes long. It pits Sonic, the Chaos Council, and all of his Shatterverse allies against Nine and his army of robotic doppelgängers.
• Big Bad Ensemble: While Eggman instigates the plot and is the final threat faced overall, the Chaos Council shapes up to be the main antagonist for the first two seasons before Nine betrays everyone, especially Sonic, and steals the nearly-complete Paradox Prism to use it in recreating his ideal world in the Grim, consequences for every Shatterspace be damned. Additionally, Dread serves as a minor antagonist during Season 2.
• Big Brother Instinct: Sonic's protectiveness of Tails, and by extension his Shatterverse counterparts, is on full display. It's portrayed as a double-edged sword, as Eggman and eventually Nine use it to provoke him into doing what they want.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • In "Situation: Grim", Sonic returns to New Yoke just when the Chaos Council has the Resistance cornered. Nine also shows up moments later to save all of them with Sonic keeping mechas off him, though he gets captured as a result.
  • Rusty Rose and Black Rose^note after the former's Heel–Face Turn pull no less than three Gunship Rescues on Sonic's behalf, two of which have them (and some others) catching him mid-fall.
  • Shadow comes in to save the day in Season 3, in showing up just in time to teleport the Paradox Prism away and prevent it from being shattered or misused ever again in the final battle of the show (which is the same as its very first).
  • Sonic in season 1 saves Nine from bring killed by a mechanical, spin dashed through the powered up mechs, then thought Knucks, Rebel and Nine to spindah themselves, which they quickly get the hang of. Later, he had Thorn make peace with the scavengers by having them talk about their problems , which had them discover the errors of their way, settle their differences and they started working together in protecting the jungle. In season 2, Sonic save shadow from death in the void. later on, from Nine fusing energy from the prism to Sonic, he became Prism Sonic and saved Shadow from Dr. Deep and Dr. Babble by defeating them, then from more prism fused to him from nine, he took down an titan of Eggman from the inside. In season 3, Sonic protected his friends and the Chaos council from Nine's attacks by feeding power to their shatter drive and dome. The dome activated a shield. afterwards, he rescued the remaining No Place pirates with assistance from Rusty Rose, Black Rose, Dr. deep and Dr. Done it. In the finale episode, Sonic brought Nine to distract him from his comrade so they could crash into his base. He;d had Nine seen the damage he done to the shatter verse then assisted him to restore it by selflessly sacrificing himself. In the restored Green Hill Zone, he and his real friends, Tails, Knuckles, Amy Rose and Rouge worked together as a team to make Eggman unhand the paradox prism and forced him away from it, defeating him before Shadow came to aid by teleporting himself away with the paradox prism from Eggman.
• Big Damn Reunion: Sonic and the Prime versions of his friends at the end of the series.
• Big "NO!":
  • In Season 2:
    • Nine yells this in "No Way Out" when he thinks Sonic is going to give No Place's shard to the Chaos Council.
    • Rebel Rouge lets one out in "A Madness To Their Methods" when the Chaos Council returns to New Yoke.
    • Dr. Don't exclaims this in "Ghost of a Chance" upon realizing Sonic has tricked him into missiling his own airship.
  • Eggman gives off one when Shadow denies him the Paradox Prism in "From The Top".
• Bittersweet Ending: Sonic and Shadow manage to restore Green Hill and foil Eggman's ploy 20 seconds before Sonic ended up screwing everything by accident, and Shadow warps the Paradox Prism away so no one can wreck the universes again. However, Sonic (and Shadow) can't ever go back into the Shatterverse, barring the way to seeing all the other counterparts. The Chaos Council is still out there (or at least floating in the Shatterverse). It's also unclear how the rest of the universes are faring, and Nine clearly regrets being alone in the Grim after Sonic got through him.
• Bookends: The series' story begins and ends with the battle against Eggman in the Paradox Prism's cave. The only difference in the ending is Sonic— having learned his lesson about acting arrogant and impulsive— actually listening to his friends and not charging in guns blazing, preventing another Paradox Prism shattering as he instead hugs Eggman, just glad to see everyone again before proceeding with the egg-whooping. Shadow, who arrived too late to stop Sonic the first time, is able to aid them and warp the Prism away with Chaos Control to further stop another catastrophe from happening.
• Both Sides Have a Point: The conflict between the Scavengers and the "Monster" isn't as black and white as it's initially presented: While Thorn is right to be angry over her friends' callous over-consumption of the jungle's natural resources, they're equally justified in considering her a monster seeing as she decided to give in to her anger and attack them out of the blue rather than explain her concerns.
• Brainy Baby: Babble (the baby Eggman) is an infant and smart enough to pilot a dangerous mecha.
• Breather Episode: Coming after the resistance fighting and winning their battle to free New Yoke City and before the heroes needing to stop Rusty Rose from reaching the prism shard first is Episode 7, It Takes One To No Place. Said episode is mainly about Sonic meeting the characters from the pirate shatter space and partying with them, with the most in the way of drama being one flashback sequence and an easy battle against Dread's former crew.
• But Now I Must Go: Upon saving the Shatterverse, including Green Hill, Sonic can no longer exist beyond his own reality and must part with his friends' alternate selves forever. He shares heartfelt goodbyes with them (especially Nine, Knucks, Dread, and the Roses) before Shadow takes him back home.
• Chekhov's Gun: In the second episode, Shadow is seen on the day of the explosion finding a Chaos Emerald and using it to teleport. "It Takes One to No Place" reveals he is the only person aside from Sonic unaffected by the Paradox Prism because he used Chaos Control (which he later loses) to evade the blast. When everything is restored to normal, he regains the Chaos Emerald and uses Chaos Control to warp the Prism away from Eggman so it will never be shattered again.
• Cliffhanger:
  • The last episode of Season 1 ends with Shadow attacking Sonic in the Void Between the Worlds, enraged that because of Sonic, their home world no longer exists.
  • The last episode of Season 2 ends with Nine denouncing his friendship with Sonic, betraying him and steal four of the Shards for himself and to build a new world with the fifth and final Shard (the Grim), leaving the Ghost Hill to decay.
  • The last episode of Season 3, despite everything in the plot being all wrapped up and all being well, ends on an unknown threat suddenly breaching Green Hill, with Sonic and friends running in to take it head on, though it can easily just be an And the Adventure Continues-type of ending.
• Clothes Make the Superman: After receiving newly upgraded tech from Nine, Sonic's gloves and shoes not only change their appearance to match whatever Shatterspace he's in, but also give him unique abilities that help him traverse the area's unique terrain. Further upgraded in Season 2, allowing Sonic to safely hold any Prism Shards.
  • In Boscage Maze, his gloves and shoes gain a green, leaflike pattern, and his gloves now can retract and protract claws to help him climb up the trees and dig.
  • In No Place, his gloves and shoes gain a more leathery, tattered appearance and his shoes can now release tiny rafts, allowing him to be able to run on water.
  • In the Grim, his gloves have patterns of hexagons with metallic wrap around the base and his fingers, while his shoes take the same pattern and add crystals with the same effect with metallic coverings near the top of the front. The soles can create hexagonal energy platforms for him to stand on in mid-air even when running, while his gloves can create a large hexagon shield that can protect against physical attacks and Nine’s Paradox Prism blasts.
• Conflict Ball: No matter where Sonic goes, almost everybody seems hell-bent on lashing out and fighting instead of talking things out. Shadow hopes to prevent a spacetime apocalypse? He duels Sonic to keep him away from the Paradox Prism's cave. Thorn doesn't want the Scavengers over-exploiting the jungle? She breaks the hammer out, chases them to the canopy, and leaves them to starve. Sonic accidentally violates Nine's personal space and feelings? Nine first attacks him on sight, then later backstabs him and ends up provoking a war with the rest of the Shatterverse. At one point, Sonic also gets caught up in a Mêlée à Trois between himself, Dread's crew, and the Chaos Council over just one Prism shard. In the final episode, with all of existence on the brink, Sonic finally snaps and shouts at the others to cut the crap before it's too late.
  Sonic: Everyone, STOP! This ISN'T the solution! (...) In a few minutes, there won't be anything left to fight over!
  Dr. Deep: The hedgehog makes a good point.
• Continuity Cavalcade: Season 2 starts with the entirety of the first season reframed into Shadow's perspective.
• Continuity Nod: Unlike most Sonic animated media, Sonic collecting and relying on Powers Rings is a lot more straightforward like in the games. Judging by how he either gathers them or worries about having enough, it's strongly implied that they help him survive the most brutal attacks from Eggman or Shadow.
  • Rouge's new, more modest bodysuit is a very close match for the one she wore◊ in Sonic Heroes, as well as her Elite Agent◊ look from Sonic Dash and Sonic Forces: Speed Battle.
  • As seen in this "Best Friends" clip, Tails' backstory as Sonic describes is portrayed nearly identically to how it was presented in Sonic Origins. The scene is also made using sprite art that harkens back to Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
  • The Flicky that powers Rusty Rose is pink like the one that powered E-102 Gamma, additionally both her and Thorn refer to it as "Birdie", the same name Amy gave to the blue Flicky in the same game.
  • In "Shattered", when Sonic is bragging to Eggman about how he'll always beat him, Sonic does a breakdance that is nearly identical to Modern Sonic's S-Rank level clear animation in Sonic Generations.
  • Dread's pirate ship is the Angel's Voyage, a reference to Knuckles' home of Angel Island.
  • In "It Takes One to No Place", when faced with an undersea threat, Sonic nervously hopes aloud that it's not an orca—a reference to the fact that he's had a few bad run-ins with them before.
  • Sonic being lost in a whole new reality after messing with a mysterious powerful gem is similar to the true ending of Sonic Mania where his classic counterpart suffers the same fate after his final confrontation between Eggman and Heavy King.
  • The entire Ghost Hills is this now only to the very beginning of the show, but Green Hill in general.
• Cosmic Keystone: The Paradox Prism. Not only did Sonic smashing it create the Shatterspaces, it destroyed the original world in the process, leaving the Ghost Hills as its remnant..
• Cosmic Retcon: When Sonic and Shadow, retaining their memories of the ordeal, return to Where It All Began in "From The Top", the former avoids breaking the Paradox Prism a second time and the latter ensures its power will never be unleashed again, thus undoing the entire show's plot past the opening battle. Doubles as a Call-Forward to the end of Sonic '06.
• Covered with Scars: In the resistance world, Knuckles has scars on his forehead, chest, and even his quills.
• Cruel Twist Ending: The conclusion of Season 2. Sonic and Shadow defeat the Chaos Council and Nine rebuilts the Paradox Prism...but Green Hill still isn't back to normal. When Sonic investigates, he learns Nine doesn't want to fix the original world but rather make an ideal one for himself in The Grim, and in protesting, Sonic accidentally reveals he's been projecting his loved ones onto their Shatterverse counterparts, unable to tell them apart. Outraged that Sonic treated him as a Replacement Goldfish for Tails, Nine turns his back on the hedgehogs and steals all the Prism shards, leaving a heartbroken Sonic and an irate Shadow back at square one with even worse to come.
• Cyborg:
  • Whatever happened to Rusty Rose has caused her to become this. The only organic part of her left is her head and a bird she has trapped in her chest cavity.
  • The New Yoke universe version of Tails, Nine, has seven mechanical prosthetic tails (alongside the usual two main tails) that double as Combat Tentacles.
• Dark and Troubled Past: The New Yoke version of Tails' backstory is nearly identical to the main universe's, only without Sonic around. In said backstory, Tails eventually got sick of the bullying and decided to weaponize his tails and cut himself off from the outside world.
• Darker and Edgier: In comparison to the previous animated series Sonic Boom. Whereas Boom had an episodic, comedic setup, Prime is a lot more plot-oriented with a tone more in line with the main games, with Eggman, in particular, being far from the humorous Harmless Villain he was in Boom, with the whole cast having a deeper introspective on their characters. Sonic loses some of his usual optimistic attitude when his actions make him lose his home and friends, though he is still hopeful that he can restore everything.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • It wouldn't be Sonic if he wasn't cracking jokes in the face of danger.
  • Nine also shows himself to have a dryer wit than Tails normally does.
• Death Is Gray: The Green Hill Shatterspace (a.k.a. Ghost Hill) takes on this form, having been rendered a pale, lifeless world haunted by phantoms of Sonic's friends repeating the same lines over and over again. Incidentally, Sonic's gloves and shoes transform into a basic monochrome palette with grey wireframe Tron Lines, reflecting the incomplete nature of the Shatterspace. Briefly subverted when Nine placed the Red Shard inaccurately inside of the prism blueprint, briefly making the Hills normal... and then back to this trope again.
• Demoted to Extra: The main versions of Sonic's friends (and Eggman) don't get much to do this time around, as they're done away with in the first episode to focus on their Shatterspace counterparts instead. The originals do get sporadically referenced, but are later revealed to have been transformed/split into the Shattered Characters.
• Disney Death: When Nine sics his robots on his counterparts, Mangey and Sails, the latter two seemingly pull a suicide-bombing. However, they reappear unscathed a couple episodes later (they just flew away).
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first couple of episodes feature Sonic collecting rings (and losing them upon taking a hit) like in the games, with Sonic mentioning that he does this to increase his durability, prompting the audience to think that Sonic will collect rings regularly for the entire series. After the Paradox Prism is destroyed and the Shatterverse is created, rings disappear completely and aren't even mentioned again.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: It takes a lot of work, but in the end, the Chaos Council is defeated, the Shatterspaces healed, Green Hill restored, and Sonic reunited with his friends. The last scene of the show is them going on a new adventure, together.
• Easily Conquered World:
  • If the flashback Renegade Knucks and Rebel Rogue have is what literally happened, then the Chaos Council, backed by the power of the Prism shard, were able to conquer their Green Hill and create New Yoke City in a manner of minutes, especially since there was no Sonic to oppose them.
  • Invoked in the second half of Season 2, as The Chaos Council's attempt at Terraforming the Boscage Maze and No Place shows.
• Enfant Terrible: The first Eggman counterpart Sonic fights is Babble, an infant who is both smart and violent enough to pilot his own mecha. Sonic refuses to keep fighting when he sees his opponent is a baby, but said baby has no such limitations.
• Et Tu, Brute?: In Season 2...
  • Dread and his crew (including a betrayed Rusty) accusing Sonic of abandoning them when he was trying to get back the blue Shard. They got better.
  • At the end of "Ghost of a Chance", Nine refusing to rebuild the original world, and instead building a new one upon the Grim he received (through the final Shard), using the four Shards he aligned. This decision to use Paradox Prism led to him denouncing his friendship with Sonic, and stealing the Shards for himself, as behold the Wham Line below.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Whoever uses so much as a fraction of the Paradox Prism's energy quickly gets Drunk on the Dark Side and ends up nearly destroying what they sought to preserve. When the Chaos Council try to claim it anyhow, Sonic bluntly declares they've no chance of handling its power, pointing out how Nine's use of it resulted in him almost destroying the Shatterverse by accident. Had Eggman gotten his hands on it, the Paradox Prism almost certainly would've proven beyond his control, too, especially given his track record with this trope.
• Expressive Ears:
  • Sonic's ears visibly droop as he begs Nine to stop trying to fight him and hear him out.
  • Mangey Tails' ears also sag dejectedly when Prim takes a mango he was about to eat.
  • Shadow, of all people, has this reaction when Sonic's Heroic Sacrifice at the end of the series turns the Blue Blur into fading ghost.
• Expendable Alternate Universe: Discussed and Played With. Once Sonic fully understands the nature of the Shatterspaces, he is willing to risk his own escape or the Prism Shards to save the inhabitants and solve their problems. When Shadow dismisses them as fakes, Sonic stands up to their defense. However, Sonic himself is guilty of treating the alternate versions of his friends as extensions of the originals instead of their own people, which gets him in trouble sometimes. The most critical example of this is with Nine, Tails' New Yoke City counterpart: while Sonic treating him as the same as Tails gives Sonic a valuable ally, Sonic fails to realize how different he is from the original Tails. In the second season finale, Sonic wants to restore the original Green Hill (which would erase Nine and all the other Shatterspaces) while Nine wants to use the Prism Shards to create a new, "better" world in the Grim, accusing Sonic of projecting his Tails onto him (it doesn't help that Sonic accidentally calls his Tails "the real Tails", prompting Nine to snap at him). This disagreement is enough to make Nine betray Sonic and take the Shards for himself.
  • In the climax of season 3 this is seemingly Averted, as not only are the Shatterspaces restored, but Green Hill as well.
• Failed a Spot Check:
  • In the first episode, Sonic questions Rouge about how she got into Tails' workshop. Did she use her skills as a master thief and treasure hunter to sneak past? Nope; Sonic and Tails just left the door open, so she walked right in. Cut the camera shot panning to the open door.
  • "Avoid The Void": Shadow briefly stole Sonic's tech given by Nine in the first season, and so attempted to enter the Boscage Maze Shatterspace all by himself. However, he fails due to not possessing any of the Prism Energy like Sonic. He doesn't realize it until after the attempt failed and he realized something about Sonic.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: At the start of Season 2, Mister Doctor Eggman and Dr. Done-It tell Babble and Don't not to mess things up like they usually do. Later in the same scene, Nine gets access to their systems by simply saying he needs it to do his job, to which they give him full access.
• Foreshadowing: In "Avoid the Void", Shadow and Sonic argue over the validity of the Shatterspaces, leading to Sonic comparing Nine and Tails while Shadow retorts that the foxes are different people. Near the end of "Ghost of a Chance", Nine criticizes Sonic for treating him like a Replacement Goldfish and pulls a Face–Heel Turn after the hedgehog accidentally implies he doesn’t think of Nine as a real person.
• Furry Reminder:
  • Rouge and her Shatterverse counterparts all sleep perched upside-down, like most bats do.
  • Sonic at one point uses his hearing (which hedgehogs are good at) to compensate for his poor eyesight in the darkness.
• Gotta Catch Them All: As of Season 2, Sonic is tasked by Shadow to find the missing Prism Shards from each Shatterspace, running under the assumption that reuniting the Prism Shards with the phantom Paradox Prism in Green Hill may help restore the world to its rightful place. Meanwhile, the Chaos Council also decided to take the Shards for themselves. In the end, it's Nine (Tails of New Yoke, incidentally the same Shatterspace as the Chaos Council) who succeeds in gathering all the Shards... for himself.
• The Greatest Story Never Told: The original Green Hill is restored in the finale, but only Sonic and Shadow remember the events. Sonic, now with a greater appreciation for his friends, was about to tell his friends the whole story, but some new threat emerges before he can start and it's back to business.
• Green Hill Zone: The series starts in the Trope Namer. Later turned into Ghost Hills (as of Season 2), where apparitions of Sonic's friends repeats the same things over and over and over...
  • The Shatterspaces—alternate Green Hills—do not qualify as this trope, which is somewhat the point.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Nine, Thorn, and to a lesser degree Shadow all share the same Fatal Flaw: Wrath. Their resulting predisposition towards fighting over discussion causes them to end up making their respective problems worse:
  • Shadow’s habit of solving problems with his fists starts the whole conflict when he attacks Sonic after receiving the vision of the portal Sonic creates in New Yoke, instead of just telling him what he saw. Later, he spends the second half of "Avoid the Void" fighting with Sonic for his tech, believing they'll let him access the Shatterspaces freely. However, he's proven wrong when the portal to Boscage Maze rejects him anyway, briefly rendering him unconscious and sending him rocketing towards the black hole at the bottom of the Shatterverse. Only after Sonic saves him does he realize it's Sonic's Prism energy that lets him go into the Shatterspaces, humbly (if begrudgingly) swallow his pride, and accept Sonic’s help, working with him to restore their home for the rest of the show without any further issue (some snide comments notwithstanding).
  • Thorn unknowingly decimates the very jungle she's trying to protect by depriving it of sunlight in her Prism shard-induced fury, and Nine waves away Sonic's warnings that his abuse of the incomplete Prism is destroying their reality as they know it, still mad at the hedgehog after their earlier fallout and believing that he's just lying to him. When finally snapped out of their frenzies, they're both deeply ashamed at having let their anger make them so irrational.
• How We Got Here: "Avoid the Void" opens with the events of Season 1 being retraced from Shadow's perspective, detailing his attempts to communicate with Sonic from the Void as Sonic traveled through the Shatterspaces up until the final scene from Season 1 where he intercepts Sonic and confronts him. It also reveals that when he attempted to enter a Shatterspace, the recoil from being rejected caused him to drop his green Chaos Emerald, sending it into the bottomless abyss of the Void.
• In Spite of a Nail: Despite the myriad differences between the Shatterspaces and their inhabitants, some things remain near-constant in each world.
  • Each world seems to have a version of the same palm tree as if it was somehow unaffected by the Prism's shattering.
  • Knuckles and Rouge are always part of a group, with either of them as the leader.
• Inconsistent Coloring: Shadow's eyes fluctuate between appearing red or brown, which is is strange as he tends to be a definite case of Red Eyes, Take Warning. It's yet unknown if this is an error.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Is the city from the dystopian universe called New Yoke or New Yolk? Even the official Netflix subtitles for Season 1 can't agree on this one, with earlier episodes using the former but later episodes using the latter. Sonic Speed Simulator, an officially licensed Roblox game, spells it as "New Yoke". Season 2 onwards have it spelled as "New Yoke."
• Ironic Echo: When Sonic and Shadow are fighting, Sonic argues that Nine and the other versions of their friends are real. Come the final episode of Season 2, Sonic refers to his Tails as the "real Tails" to Nine, who argues that he is real.
• Irony: Shadow is the only person to never suffer from memory loss, as Sonic is temporarily unable to recall certain events and everyone else is seemingly split into completely different lives. Rather ironic for a character whose memory has been severely damaged in multiple games.
• It's a Wonderful Plot: Played with. Unlike his friends, who have alternate counterparts in the Shatterverse, Sonic has none (because of crashing the Prism which shattered it for real in the first place) and therefore doesn’t exist at all within the Shatterspaces. This is most noticeable in New Yoke, where Sonic's absence greatly enabled the Chaos Council to conquer the world and caused Nine to become an cold loner without Sonic to save him from bullying.
  • Shadow also lacks any alternates, but in his case, it's because he used Chaos Control the instant he got struck by the Paradox Prism's energy wave, causing him to end up in the Void, but unable to enter Shatterspaces himself, so there's no alternates of the Ultimate Life Form that exist.
• Killer Robot: In the New Yoke City world, Amy was transformed into a cyborg for uncertain reasons, turning her from the sweet, empathetic, nature-loving Love Interest for Sonic we know her as to a cold, calculating, and pragmatic machine and loyal Chaos Council servant who cares for Sonic about as much as she does the poor, suffering Flickie she keeps trapped in her chest cavity.
• La Résistance: In the New Yoke Shatterspace, Renegade Knuckles and Rebel Rouge have formed a resistance movement and fight against the Chaos Council's tyranny.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Sonic's Fatal Flaw in this series, and one of its main sources of conflict, is his tendency to heroically but impulsively speed ahead instead of listening to his friends. Eggman takes advantage of this flaw to help himself dig up the Paradox Prism, and later, Sonic ends up starting up the whole conflict because he charges into and destroys the Paradox Prism to keep Eggman from getting it. He makes the same mistake in ignoring Nine's own feelings and Shadow's misgivings about trusting the fox until Nine finally betrays and abandons him to die. He finally comes learn his lesson over the course of the third season, and when he finally gets home, he acts like a team player instead of a solo act.
• Mecha-Mooks: The Egg-forcers are the seemingly endless muscle of the Chaos Council, capable of flight and armed with Shoulder Cannons. After stealing the Paradox Prism, Nine uses it to make Chaos Sonic-based EvilKnockoffs of Sonic's friends, all but one of which are "Alphas" capable of multiplying themselves; said copies disappear when their Alpha is destroyed.
• Mineral MacGuffin: The Paradox Prism, which (thanks to Sonic) doubles as Accidentally Broke the MacGuffin.
• Mistaken for an Imposter: After travelling through the Shatterverse and meeting different versions of his friends, when Sonic finds Shadow again, he dismisses him as a stranger. Shadow then clarifies he's from Sonic's world… as he attacks the other hedgehog for (accidentally) destroying it.
• Multiversal Conqueror: The Chaos Council, upon discovering the existence of the other Shatterspaces, seek to expand their empire to these new worlds. This leads to a part of both Boscage Maze and No Place each became overrun with buildings.
• The Multiverse: Sonic destroying the Paradox Prism created what's known as the Shatterverse, which consists of five "Shatterspaces" separated by a crystal-filled purple void. The Shatterspaces are: New Yoke City, Boscage Maze, The Grim, No Place, and Ghost Hills. These are each an alternate Green Hill Zone - though not Green Hill Zone the trope - to the point that Sonic uses his familiarity with the former to navigate New Yoke City, which he has otherwise never been to before and has no map of. However, the Shatterverse's creation came at the cost of wrecking the original universe, of which Ghost Hills in particular is the remnant.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The Chaos Council's rule over the world calls back to most early western media, such as the cartoons Sonic SatAM, Sonic Underground and the comic books Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog and Fleetway's Sonic The Comic/STC, as well as the Eastern attempt in Sonic Forces, and a later Western effort in one episode of Sonic Boom.
    • Additionally, that version of Knuckles wears a beret like his Moedian counterpart O'Nux did in Archie.
  • The iconic line "Gotta go fast!" from the English intro of Sonic X is uttered by Sonic while checking out his new Resistance gear.
    • He says it again in Season 2 Episode 7, while trying to gain enough speed to open a portal.
  • Sonic forming a figure 8-shaped Wheel o' Feet when he runs at high speed is very reminiscent of when he would do so in both Sonic CD and Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie.
  • The passcode to Tails' Workshop is "1992" the year Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was released and Tails originally debuted.
  • In New Yoke City, Big is identified by badniks as "Denizen 1998", the year Sonic Adventure was released and Big originally debuted.
  • When Nine isn't using his mechanical tails, they wrap themselves around his real ones to form one large tail, just like Tails did in the post-credit scene of Sonic the Hedgehog (2020).
  • Mr. Dr. Eggman's goggles resemble the pair worn by his live-action counterpart.
    • Additionally, his name is possibly a reference to the time Cream called Dr. Starline "Mister Doctor Starline".
  • In "Escape from New Yoke", Sonic shouts "All-star move!" when he takes out some robots.
    • From the same episode, the fight scene against Babble involves Sonic running along a circular track while evading enemy attacks, reminiscent of the Daytime boss fights from Sonic Unleashed.
  • In Sonic's flashback to how he and Knuckles met, their fight includes Knuckles catching Sonic's Spin Attack, just like in the second live-action film, and it uses sprites and backgrounds direct from Sonic 3 & Knuckles
  • When Sonic fights Dr. Babble in "Battle in the Boscage", he dodges Babble's punch the same way he did the giant Egg Fighter's similar attack in the opening scene of Sonic Unleashed.
  • After stealing the crystal from Knuckles the Dread in "No Way Out", Sonic performs the same pose he does on the box art for Sonic Adventure. Similarly, after destroying a robot in "A Madness to their Methods", he performs his render pose from Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
  • Chaos Sonic mocks Sonic by saying "You're too slow!"
  • Sonic being able to travel between Shatterspaces by building enough speed brings to mind the Time Travel mechanic from Sonic the Hedgehog CD.
  • Sonic's transformation into his Shard Energy-powered super form is near identical to his power-up in the first live-action movie as well as the cutscene of Sonic getting the Power Boost in Sonic Frontiers.
  • Dr. Done-It's penchant for referring to Sonic as a rabbit (among other small mammals, except hedgehogs) may be a reference to the fact that Sonic was originally conceived as a rabbit before they changed him into a hedgehog.
• Never the Selves Shall Meet: Played with.
  • Rusty Rose and Black Rose witness each other twice when the Chaos Council's forces first invade No Place, leaving them mutually shocked and confused. Yet apart from Rusty having a momentary glitch, nothing bad happens.
  • Dread Knuckles encounters Renegade Knuckles while pursuing the Chaos Council, leading to a confrontation. Again, confusion ensues, albeit more from Rebel Rouge than the two Knuckles.
  • Nine briefly encounters Sails, Mangey, and finally the ghost of Prime!Tails in "Cracking Down", evoking reactions ranging from (mutual) bewilderment to annoyance. Said interactions play no part in Nine's Face–Heel Turn in the following episode, though he does take issue with them afterward.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Sonic's iconic gloves and sneakers change and adapt to each world or Shatterspace he finds himself in, allowing him to adapt to the given world as well.
  • In Boscage Maze, he possesses Wolverine Claws to climb trees.
  • In No Place, his shoes allow him to hover over water.
  • It is not yet explicitly stated as of the end of the first season, but based on his moves, it is possible that in New Yoke City they give him magnetic grip and tread.
  • What he gets in The Grim isn't shown in the first two seasons, as he has only been there long enough to confirm that he has new gloves and sneakers. In Season 3, Sonic learns that, while in The Grim, he can project Hard Light hexagons from his hands and feet, which he can use as platforms or improvised shields.
  • Season 2 has the gloves being upgraded, allowing Sonic to touch the Shards without risk of teleporting into the Void Between the Worlds.
    • In the final episode of Season 2, Sonic received the prismatic powers directly from Nine channeling the energies of the Shards, powering him up and making him far faster (to the point of even being able to interact with his own ''afterimage'') to give him a fighting chance against several Eggforcers. He then received the powers again to be able to destroy the prismatic Titan (in the form of a giant Eggman).
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Sonic shattering the Paradox Prism is what kicks off the plot, scattering him and his friends across the Shatterverse. Even before this, he unintentionally helps Eggman unearth the prism's spot by ignoring Tails' warning of a trap and attacking an empty robot with a speed enhancer inside.
  • The first episode also shows that Eggman was only able to get to the Paradox Prism due to Sonic's interference. By tricking him into setting off a bomb powered by his speed which uncovered the crystal.
  • The finale of Season 1 sees Shadow telling Sonic that because of him, their homeworld no longer exists, and Sonic is at least partially responsible for it happening.
• Nightmare Face: Nine's Ax-Crazy expression when he summons a Humongous Mecha version of Big at the end of "Nine's Lives". It highlights the toll the Paradox Prism's power is exacting on his psyche.
• Noodle Incident: In Episode 5, Sonic mentions a time when Amy blindfolded him and tricked him into water (presumably to force him to learn to swim).
• Not So Similar: The alternate versions of Sonic's friends resemble the originals and share a trait or two with them, but are otherwise totally different people. Whereas Shadow understands this, Sonic struggles to do so and this repeatedly gets him in trouble, especially in Episode 16 when it causes his and Nine's falling-out.
• Other Me Annoys Me:
  • Rusty Rose and Black Rose have this dynamic at first, both before and after the former's Heel–Face Turn. As the show progresses, however, they go from Friendly Rivals to best friends, to the point where they and Thorn Rose consider each other sisters.
  • Sonic does not take kindly to Chaos Sonic throwing his usual attitude back at him.
  • Renegade Knucks and Knuckles the Dread more or less dislike each other from the start. After temporarily cooperating to beat Chaos Sonic, Knucks tussles with his pirate counterpart so Sonic and Nine can escape with the Prism shards. As with the Roses, their relationship mellows out with time.
  • Nine is repulsed by Prime!Tails' optimism and cheerfulness, and later spitefully tries to have Mangey and Sails killed for merely existing.
    Nine: There is only one me.
  • Averted with Mangey and Sails as well as the alternate Rouges and Bigs, who all get along well from the start.
• Out-Gambitted: In Season 3...
  • Trying to Mangey and Sails killed ultimately bites Nine in the tails, as they use the opportunity to fake their deaths and hijack his robotic Big the Cat when he tries to renew his army again. In particular, they end up destroying Alpha Grim Birdie, leaving Nine with no Airborne Mooks. Nine's efforts to provoke Sonic into coming to him also backfire due to Sonic's newfound prismatic power in The Grim and the hedgehog's experience in exploiting anger mismanagement.
  • After Sonic finally brings Nine back to his senses and sacrifices himself to fully restore the Paradox Prism, the Chaos Council backstab the heroes and try to claim the Prism for themselves. Sonic, however, anticipated this and subtly goads the Eggmen into quarreling over who will wield the Prism, resulting in their final defeat and banishment to the void.
• Paradox Person: After shattering the Paradox Prism, Sonic has apparently become this: he lacks any counterpart in the Shatterverse and whenever he touches a Prism Shard, he is shunted into the Void. Shadow is also this, as him using Chaos Control when the universe was shattered barred him from the Shatterspaces entirely, with him only able to communicate with Sonic, and only if Sonic's amassed a lot of energy or is in the presence of a Prism Shard.
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish": Tails' password to access his workshop is 1992, and it's the same in the alternate universe with Nine in New Yoke City.
• Painting the Medium: The series logo looks like it's shattered, much like the Shatterverse.
• Pirate Episode: One of the Shatterspaces, the No Place, has the main characters as pirates with the Knuckles counterpart, Dread, as their captain.
• Point of Divergence: Pretty much the whole plot of the show happened due to Sonic ended up creating the Shatterspaces by colliding with the Paradox Prism.
  • New Yoke City is essentially what would happen if Sonic never existed, allowing the Green Hill Zone to be conquered easily by the Dr. Eggman (or rather, in this case, Eggmen), harnessing the power of the Paradox Prism shard without Sonic there to oppose them. Furthermore, Nine was never saved from his bullies, resulting in him becoming a cynical loner.
• Police State: New Yoke City is heavily patrolled by robots called Egg-Forcers that enforce the Chaos Council's oppressive rule. The denizens are too afraid to stand up to them until a power outage caused by Sonic shuts them all down, proving that they aren't invincible.
• Poor Communication Kills: All over the place. This one trope instigates the series' entire plot and drives a good solid chunk of its conflict thereafter.
  • While Tails warns Sonic that it is a trap, he didn't follow up by specifying that the robot in question has no Eggman inside which could've got Sonic to stop. Sonic spin dashes it and causes the quake which unearths the entrance to the Paradox Prism, setting off the plot.
  • Attempting to prevent the apocalypse, Shadow tries to keep Sonic away from the Prism...by attacking him instead of talking things out. He also warns Sonic against trusting Nine, but neglects to explain why, and so Sonic doesn't believe him until it's too late.
  • Due to a Horrible Judge of Character on Sonic's part, he never tells Nine about his and Shadow's plan to fix the world (he thought Nine would be on board with it because he's one of Tails' counterparts), nor does he clarify whether he wants Green Hill or its netherworld state, Ghost Hill, restored, which gives Nine false impressions. When they finally learn each other's intent, Sonic further botches things with a Freudian Slip about whether or not Nine is a real person; Nine hits his Rage Breaking Point on that note, betrays the hedgehogs, and steals the Prism. After Nine is later subdued in The Grim, Sonic apologizes for his earlier missteps, and they reconcile.
• Power Glows: Sonic's shoes begin to glow white and crackle with electricity when he first enters the Resistance Shatterspace, possibly relating to his exposure to the Prism's energy blast, as Nine theorizes. It's also noticeable that he begins crackling with electrical energy whenever he runs. However, his shoes were also practically in tatters from his newfound powers, and he has to wear modified gear provided by Nine to ensure they don't explode whenever he gives it too much juice.
  • When he receives his true 11th-Hour Superpower through the Prisms in "Ghost of a Chance", his body and his afterimages glows just like his shoes. Goes even further when he received it again.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain:
  • Inverted with Rusty Rose. She is first introduced as The Dragon to the Chaos Council, and thus the show's secondary antagonist; even after they betray her, her initial reason for joining Dread's crew and Sonic is simply to get even. However, her newfound friendship with Black Rose leads to her to make a Heel–Face Turn and by halfway through Season 2, she is more or less fully on Sonic's side.
  • Zigzagged with Nine. Like Tails, he is initially the deuteragonist of the series and Sonic's main ally, but his Dark and Troubled Past turned him into a self-centered misanthrope and he ultimately betrays Sonic when the latter struggles to see him as his own person, rather than an extension of Tails. This leads him to steal the Paradox Prism, the power of which quickly drives him insane. Upon his defeat, though, Sonic is able to get through to Nine and he recants.
• The Psycho Rangers: Nine creates robotic duplicates of Sonic, Knuckles, Amy, Rouge and Thorn Rose's giant Birdie, which he can endlessly make replicas of, to act as his army. Later, he also creates a gigantic robot version of Big the Cat that shots Froggie-shaped bombs from its mouth.
• Remake Cameo: Brian Drummond, who voices Dr. Eggman in this series, previously voiced Knuckles in Sonic Underground. Shannon Chan-Kent, who voices Amy in this series, appeared as a waitress in the first live-action film.
• Rivals Team Up: Sonic and Shadow in Season 2, to the latter's annoyance.
• Running Gag: Whenever Sonic tells someone about his current misadventures, it's represented by a montage of all the physical abuse Sonic's suffered up until the point he's met whomever he's talking to.
• Save Both Worlds: Sonic hopes that he can both restore Green Hill and keep the Shatterspaces around. In the end, they apparently succeed.
• Series Continuity Error: Sonic remembers his first encounter with Knuckles in Sonic 3 & Knuckles in Hidden Palace Zone instead of Angel Island Zone. While Hidden Palace Zone is where Sonic and Knuckles have their showdown, Knuckles had been antagonizing him and Tails since their arrival. What makes this change more jarring is that Sonic's flashback to meeting Tails is almost identical to how it is depicted in Sonic Origins.
• Sinister Schnoz: While Eggman having a long, pointy nose is nothing new, he has more of a hooked nose in this show, making him look even more sinister. The Chaos Council, being his counterparts, share this trait with him.
• Smash Sisters: The Rose trio (Rusty, Thorn, and Black) become this after meeting each other, to the point of outright calling each other "sisters" towards the end of the series. Their bond also aids their respective Character Developments.
• Simpleton Voice: Averted. Unlike previous versions, Big in this show doesn't have a dopey-sounding drawl in his voice. His voice is still very deep, though.
• Stomach of Holding: During the Chaos Council's invasion of the Boscage Maze, Thorn attempts to keep her Prism Shard hidden by keeping it in Birdie's stomach. When the ruse is discovered, she has Birdie vomit it out and give it to Sonic - much to his and Dr. Don't's disgust - intending for him to lead the Council's forces away from her and the scavengers.
  Sonic: [disgusted] So glad I'm always wearing gloves...
• Suddenly Shouting:
  • Nine angrily introduces himself in this manner after Sonic mistakes him for mainverse Tails and calls him that.
    Nine: The name's...NINE!!!
  • Shadow's below-mentioned Wham Line at the end of Season 1.
  • Dread and Dr. Deep each do this several times—either giving orders or for dramatic effect.
  • Nine shouts again (as mentioned below in Wham Line) at the end of Season 2 during his What the Hell, Hero? rant.
• Team Member in the Adaptation: In the games, Rouge is a Wild Card who's nominally on the heroes' side and isn't considered one of Sonic's main allies, being a member of Team Dark instead and has been pushed into being more of an anti-hero in general. Here, while still more of an anti-hero who mentions being able to get the job done despite her thieving and shifty methods and trying to track down the Paradox Prism herself, she still pops by to tell Sonic about the jewel in question because she heard that Eggman was after it for nefarious purposes. As a result, she teams up with them to take him down and gets caught up in the Paradox Prism blast as a result.
• This Is My Story: Sonic narrates a good portion of the first episode, introducing himself, Eggman, and his friends to the audience. The episode also cuts back and forth between his experiences in the new Shatterspaces while remembering the events leading up to how he got there.
• Traintop Battle: Sonic and Nine start out on the wrong foot, leading to Nine chasing the Blue Blur all over the New Yoke City subway. It ends when Nine slips and falls off a train into the path of an oncoming one, prompting Sonic to save him and prove he means no harm.
• Trespassing to Talk: Subverted. When Rouge drops into Tails' Workshop about the Paradox Prism, Sonic thinks that she broke in and wonders how she did. She flatly points out that Sonic had left the door open and never closed it.
• Too Long; Didn't Dub: “Rings” is kept untranslated in the Arabic dub.
• Truer to the Text:
  • In contrast to previous Sonic cartoons, which tend to play fast and loose with the characters and setting, Prime is a lot more faithful to the games, with the cast retaining their modern game designs with only a few tweaks made to them — outside of Rouge, who gets an entirely new outfit — and settings from the games (such as Green Hill Zone) appearing in the show.
  • Big's lack of a Simpleton Voice is actually much closer to the original Japanese version of Sonic Adventure, where the character was portrayed as a laid-back Gentle Giant, rather than the more comical portrayal of the localization.
  • Unlike the previous CGI cartoon, in Prime Shadow is a hero with an attitude problem rather than an evil villain, which is much closer to his characterization in the games.
• Two Girls to a Team: Amy and Rouge are part of Sonic's team in the original world and No Place. Subverted with Rusty/Thorn Rose and Rebel/Prim Rouge. Rusty and Rebel are enemies except when the former is briefly turned to the Resistance's side. Meanwhile, Thorn had a falling out with Prim and the other scavengers, but Sonic gets them to make amends.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Played With in Season 3.
  • Rebel Rouge first comes up with a fairly detailed and logical plan that takes advantage of each hero's strength and weaknesses, while exploiting Nine's own shortcomings. This is all explained before it is executed, and while it mostly goes off without a hitch, unexpected factors like Grim Big quickly throw a wrench into the plans and put the heroes on the backfoot.
  • The unspoken variety then comes up near the end of season, where Sonic's plan of making them believe Nine has won isn't shown until everyone is shown to be faking their defeat, and Sonic is in an advantageous position.
• Villainous Breakdown: Several.
  • Rusty Rose has a mild one near the end of "There's No ARRGH In 'Team'", after Sonic and the pirates wipe out her Mecha-Mooks. Sonic, exploiting this, distracts her long enough for Sails to knock her out, after which the crew takes her prisoner.
  • Nine, already Power High throughout Season 3, comes down hard towards its end as Sonic's Alliance of Alternates wipes out his robot army and then corners him. Sonic eventually snaps him out of it, resulting in Nine's Heel–Face Turn.
  • The Chaos Council, more than once, culminating in their epic squabble over the Paradox Prism at the finale.
  • Dr. Eggman himself has one in "From The Top" as Team Sonic overpowers him and Shadow takes away the Paradox Prism to prevent its misuse.
• Void Between the Worlds: The Shatterspaces exist within an apparently endless expanse aptly dubbed 'The Void', and filled with crystal debris with what appears to be a life-decaying black hole at the bottom. Shadow ends up in it when the Paradox Prism goes off, and from there can view some of Sonic's activities when his build up of Prismatic energy thins the veil between worlds. Sonic also crosses the Void whenever he travels between Shatterspaces, rather than solely teleporting between dimensions.
• We Used to Be Friends: The main plot of the Boscage Maze dimension, with the counterparts of Sonic's friends in conflict with each other (Specifically between Amy's counterpart Thorn Rose and everyone else) after both the scavengers grew too greedy in how they harvested the forest and Thorn aggressively kicking them out and shutting everyone out as a result, and it's up to the main universe Sonic to help both sides reconcile.
• Wham Episode:
  • The ending of "There's No Arrgh In Team" has Sonic traveling between the Shatterspaces when he's suddenly attacked by Shadow, who remained unaffected by the split due to using Chaos Control when the shift happened. Shadow then tells Sonic that because he split the Paradox Prism, their world doesn't exist anymore.
  • "Ghost of a Chance" ends with Nine stealing all the Prism Shards collected throughout the first two seasons of Sonic trying to fix reality.
• Wham Line:
  • In the final seconds of "There's No Arrgh in Team" Shadow delivers a pretty epic one to Sonic, revealing the Paradox Prism's shattering to be much more cataclysmic than previously thought.
    Sonic: I don't have time to deal with whoever you are. I just wanna go home.
    Shadow: "Home"? Home doesn't exist anymore...BECAUSE OF YOU!
  • The second half of Season 2 seems to be filled with this...sort of.
    Sonic: I assumed after everything we'd been through, you'd see things the way I do. Just like the real Tails would.
    Nine: I am real! ...Just not your real friend.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Sonic gets verbally eviscerated for his mistakes (breaking reality, failing to tell his friends and their alternate selves apart, etc.) a number of times. Shadow and Nine tear into him especially hard.
• Wheel o' Feet: Unlike the other modern 3DCG incarnations of Sonic, Prime Sonic runs with his feet forming a glowing red infinity-shaped trail at high speed, akin to his classic self.
• Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises:
  • Sonic gets this several times, such as right before a truck runs him over in the first episode.
  • Batten, Black Rose, and Sails' eyes all bug out at once when Sonic rows their dinghy as fast as a speedboat.
  • Nine sports these at the height of his Villainous Breakdown.
• White and Gray Morality: The dynamic between Sonic (who is determined to fix his world but would like to save the other Shatterspaces if possible), Shadow (who is straightforward about restoring the world with little regard for the Shatterverse), and Nine (who just wants to start from scratch in a remote Shatterspace and doesn't care about the other worlds) in Season 2. This clash of mindsets instigates a duel between Sonic and Shadow in the premiere and drives Nine to betray them at the finale.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Wielders of the Paradox Prism are very likely to be corrupted when using its powers. Just one shard by itself is strong enough to drive someone insane. Thorn, with Sonic's help, is able to recognize the danger and turn back after just one episode, but Dread's lifelong obsession with one of the shards causes him to undergo major Sanity Slippage when he acquires it, and the Chaos Council pay no heed to the damage their misuse of three shards causes to the fabric of reality. Later still, Nine manages to recombine the Prism and goes on one hell of a Power High, even with the Prism's energy supply diminished, and worsens the damage the Chaos Council causes when he tries to fulfill his own ambitions.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: When Sonic finds out the pilot of the mecha he's been fighting is Babble he refuses to keep fighting him, stating that he doesn't fight babies. Unfortunately, Babble has no such qualms about fighting him.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Sonic and Shadow come close to restoring the world at the end of Season 2, but Nine's betrayal and theft of the Paradox Prism bumps the hedgehogs right back to square one.
• Year Outside, Hour Inside: When Sonic returns to New Yoke City after getting sucked into the Red Prism Shard, he believes he's been gone for a day at most, but Rebel Rouge tells him he's been gone for weeks.
• You Don't Want to Know: When asked by Sonic what Sea Dogs are made of, Dread laughs before flat-out telling him not to ask.
• Your Door Was Open: How Rouge "broke into" Tails' workshop in the first episode.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: The aforementioned Cruel Twist Ending to "Ghost of a Chance", the show's second Season Finale.

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