I'll admit that I'm talking out of my ass on this, but I think Sonic games writing during the 2000's could be compared to how anime creates its movies while the main manga is worked on.
Like, the DBZ movies make no sense in the continuity but fans have tried to make sense of them. The Sonic continuity is very comparable to the Dragon Ball anime continuity in this regard
06, however, it's the one case the main material liked a thing from the spin off and essentially forced it into the narrative - without it making a slick of sense.
To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.It literally takes until the 9th movie for any of the DBZ movies to actually attempt to fit in with the established continuity.
Despite the fact that it should seem the opposite, anyone actually trying to put the movies in the canon timeline isn't actually paying attention.
At least for Sonic, Blaze's situation is the only real example of this.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.Worst part is there was... nobody really who would've worked better than Blaze anyway. Nobody else was a mainstay character or could be teamed up with Silver, and she was still being created as a character. So both teams having free reign made sense at the time. The issue was entirely on communication. Her teaming up with Silver isn't actually an issue, it's just her dying within the story and this is not being kept. The idea she's a future version of Blaze, but still from a different dimension, isn't any better because it means that her death is still guaranteed due to that being the one thing that time didn't affect. Oddly.
She was kind of in a bad place regardless. :/
Shadow?Honestly, the whole thing is a pretty prime example of just how bad the production can be in this series, at least on the writing front.
Sonic writing ain't exactly amazing or anything, but its truly astonishing how willing they are to just...disregard their own continuity for the sake of a gameplay gimmick, but still try to pretend like they have a continuity.
Its like Akira Toriyama handles Dragon Ball; just plays fast and loose.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.I kind of get where you're coming from with the continuity/gameplay angle, but it's more on the story direction alone. No matter, somebody had to be Silver's other partner. Blaze was, as I said before, the only realistic choice among the cast coming up. Cream was, like, it otherwise(and Chaotix need to be their own story to make sense. And they would possibly be more irrelevant to the main plot than Sonic is), and this is a much darker game for her to be playable in. She has little to do with Shadow's plot at least in his own game, barely showing up for a single mission, and a slight bit at the end. Which the scene is narmy enough that her usage isn't as bad as it could be. Heroes is a very colorful game, as is the Advance Trilogy, with Sonic Battle only being a bit darker. 06 is a much more dark game. It's easy to see why she had no chance(though at least she's very believable to be willing to help Silver on its own, but in the context, not in the future would she be heavily fighting for her life. That's a bit too much to change up. Blaze wasn't fully characterized, at least).
But yeah, her death was handled poorly in 06. I had no issues with the time reset. That was fine on its own. Albeit, I kind of get why. Sonic gets revived in-story, but they don't find a way to revive Blaze. Thus, it looked more like some deaths never could get reversed regardless of the time reset. It's the same for Mephiles/Iblis/Solaris, though that's more justified in that they're killed in the past, future, and present. Regardless, her death was meaningless, which is what made it all worse. I'd argue it's lucky she already had a backstory with another dimension at the same time, kind of saving her character from being a one-game wonder. Not necessarily making it easy to work in the end, but still better than before~
Shadow?Did Blaze die in 06? I thought she just sealed herself in another dimension. Which, I guess, was supposed to make her outside of the time that got reset?
Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on Oct 30th 2022 at 7:18:07 AM
My musician pageAh, I misremembered. She maybe died, but she's hard-sealed in another dimension(something that is noted in Generations when Crisis City is returned).
My bad. We'll never know either way, as the future basically didn't exist till Generations returned it. They handled her weirdly either way, yeah.
Shadow?I always thought 06 made more sense if it came BEFORE Rush, with Blaze getting reborn in that alternate dimension with a hard memory wipe (except Crisis City).
As for the Rouge Tails scene in Battle, I saw it as her trolling Tails if anything.
Sonic Shadow conflicts make more sense if written in a combination of Idealism vs Cynicism conflict and Blood Knight (ie Shadow actually enjoys their fights).
IIRC, Word of God specifically said that Blaze did not seal herself in the Sol Dimension. Which... raises more questions than it answers.
My musician pageFunnily enough, Sonic X has Rouge repeat a similar concept, and it's even more clear, as he basically breaks down into a blushy mess after being kissed. Something only during the Sonic Battle arc, too(near the two-episode climax, via a tournament).
...But it is kind of the design of Rouge's character either way. And to be fair, this is before Heroes' retcon to make Tails way younger, so it's a lot less awkward. That game is kind of odd, though. And straight out seducing wasn't going to happen due to being for kids. Teasing in a seductive way while keeping it semi-clean was always the furthest they'd go. It's kind of ironic that Sonic X showed the scene in a clearer light instead of being a very basic tease(that tease definitely worked in Sonic Battle. Sonic on the other hand, welllllll... he's a bit more chaste, so naturally it failed). XD
Well, tons of dimensions exist. It's likely meant to be a more mysterious dimension to keep the evil locked away. Bringing it to her own could potentially corrupt it or something, but to be fair, due to lack of communication, the developers of 06 probably didn't even know of the Sol Dimension, which would explain why it's just an unknown one. Not that they couldn't retcon it, but at least they have an excuse to keep it that way.
Edited by Irene on Oct 30th 2022 at 6:59:43 AM
Shadow?Maekawa has said that he wrote the ending to Silver's story in 06 to try and tie it together with Blaze's backstory in Rush, but he wasn't sure if he succeeded in that. The dimension Blaze is sealed into at the end of 06 is probably meant to be the "Sol Dimension", but it's done in a slapdash manner that raises a lot of questions Sonic Team isn't going to answer. (Like, did the dimension always exist previously? Was Blaze cosmically retconned into always existing in that dimension, or did she just appear there and was a made a princess for some reason? Are the Sol Emerald somehow connected to Solaris, and did they always exist?)
And speaking of lore connections that will never be elaborated on, there's the implications that the Babylon Rogues' ancestors came from the Sol Dimesion that's never been brought up again.
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Well, Sonic X is an anime. Anime tends to push a little further in what it considers to be kid appropriate.
Wait, is Sonic X why there's so much ru... Actually, nevermind. Let's stay far away from that.
Anyway, want to add my vote to the "Rouge is a good character" tally. If Sonic Prime utilizes her well, that'd be great. And if she does end up appearing in Knuckles' Paramount+ series, maybe it'll kickoff a Rouge renaissance... Probably not.
Edited by diddyknux on Oct 30th 2022 at 7:24:35 AM
That and 4kids was honestly super weird on what it edits out. Declaring love was offlimits for them unless the couple was already together, and otherwise slightly ship tease was fine(Amy is outright psychotic in X about it, but people at least shipped them together and she was commonly trying to get Sonic to marry her in the games. Instead, they simply made it closer to "trying to get a date", which actually wasn't a bad concept in itself. It just became way too much of her character, not as much showing off her truly caring side. ...Cream took that role instead, heh). Also, I was more saying that they took Rouge's seduction tactics and let it loose more in Sonic X in an ironic fashion, not saying that anime was more open(I mean it is, but that wasn't my core point). More that somehow 4kids didn't edit that out. Hell, Rouge is much less modest in X than every game bar her first appearance and Battle, respectively. Later games tone down her seductive style, as well as apparently her bust size, to more bring about her other traits, including that she can be loyal.
Though to give credit, Sonic X did a good job of nailing her personality, not making her too seductive overall, nor too unloyal(it exists to a minor degree, but she's far more loyal than you'd seriously expect for a spy), but still kept her as easily manipulative, a part of her core design. Albeit, it's less present in the games, but logical for her design.
The games however are different, and either way, Sonic Battle's dialogue had to be toned down from Japanese due to things like swearing. I don't know if she was more seductive(not saying successfully) in the Japanese dialogue, though?
Edited by Irene on Oct 30th 2022 at 7:33:33 AM
Shadow?If 50% of the western Sonic fanbase came from Sonic X and 65% came from AoStH and SatAM, that leaves less than no room for the western fans like me who really did come for games before anything else.
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I mean, multiple teams working on different projects is nothing new. Companies do it all of the time.
They (usually) just don't step on each other's toes when in the development process. Evidently someone internally just never realized or cared that Blaze has an entirely different lore when they greenlit her for 06.
But yea, they've...never particularly cared about their continuity at all lol. Which makes it doubly funny when fans seem to do mental gymnastics to connect the dots.
Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Oct 30th 2022 at 5:49:46 AM
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.