Review: Season 3, Episode 2

Hoo, where to start with this one? It feels great to finally be done with this plot after teasing it for so long, not to mention the extension created by splitting it into two parts. It was not supposed to take this long. It was supposed to be a nice, memorable, self-contained experience, just like last season’s premiere. But I just couldn’t do it. So anyways, let’s talk a bit about Agent Black. My goal with this episode, above everything else, was to deepen the tragedy of Shadow’s past in a meaningful way. I’ve done a lot with Shadow’s character so far in this series, tending towards themes of repeating history and learning from mistakes, but this is the first time I’ve ever really touched Shadow’s original backstory. Most Sonic characters don’t have a backstory, so crafting stories for them was comparatively easy, to the point that Shadow was starting to feel left out of the strong character development the rest of the cast is getting. But now, by adding just 20 seconds of footage to a video we’ve already seen, I’ve created what is perhaps the darkest moment in Sonic history, centered, of course, around Shadow. (Though I reluctantly admit that said title will soon be taken by Silver & Zero—more on that next week.) That raw moment of Shadow being shaken to his core is something that happened to him quite a bit in his first few games, but hasn’t really been possible since 06 pushed his character into a stronger place. It feels good to break that wall.

Another big component of this episode was attempting to fix the mistakes of part 1. Well, not so much mistakes, but unavoidable consequences. In part 1, there were a lot of hasty, emotional decisions being made, and it, perhaps, made everyone look a little bit stupid. In this part, everyone got a chance to stop and think, really express why they’re doing what they’re doing, and make choices that seem clearly reasonable in the end. Of course, it wouldn’t have had to be a “fix” if I’d just kept it down to one part, and I worry now that it might be too little too late. The true premiere episode of Season 3 will forever be tainted, because it lacks what the following episode has to fill in. Still, taken as a whole package, I’m very happy with the narrative that these two episodes tell together.

There were, of course, more Captain America inspirations continuing off of part one. The sleeper soldier team finds a target in the soldier’s original base in “Siberia,” one of the teams recruits a “Spider-Man” (a character that everybody knows but no one expected to actually show up in this context), there’s a big team-vs-team fight which ends with the robot accidentally shooting down one of his allies, the sleeper soldier and one companion make it to the base followed by a leader of the other team (“I allowed myself to become distracted”), and finally, there’s a big shocking reveal via old recorded video within the base. The big subversion here is that, while Captain America and Iron Man entered the base as hesitant allies turned against one another by the video, Shadow and Knuckles enter the base as enemies brought together by the video. I like to think that my ending is a bit more wholesome and satisfying.

It probably came across pretty clearly that the whole Vector subplot wasn’t necessarily originally intended to be a part of this episode. In its original intended form, this hypothetical Vector solo episode would’ve been seen near the end of Season 2, playing a similar role to “In Too Deep” in Season 1. We’d get a roll of flashbacks to events that happened behind the scenes throughout the season, this time from Vector’s perspective. This episode would most likely have introduced SCOPE’s moon base, so it wouldn’t have to come in so suddenly here in Civil War territory. I’d like to say that Mighty also would’ve been introduced there, but I honestly wasn’t far enough along in planning to know that. I ended up realizing that the second half of Season 2 was already crammed too full of other episodes, so Vector’s story had to be delayed. The plan was to put it early here in Season 3, perhaps the first or second episode after the premiere. But when Civil War turned into a two-parter, that meant some other episode here in the first half of the season had to get the axe to make room for that second part. Rather than delaying Vector’s story even further, I decided it could work out pretty well to merge it directly into part 2. It had the bulk that this episode would’ve been lacking without it, and the SCOPE connection was already there. The result still ended up a bit strange, as Vector’s scenes are very tonally different from the rest of this Civil War plot, but the “everything is connected” theme was able to justify it in a narrative sense.

And that brings me on to Mighty. There’s an interesting story behind him. Once upon a time, six or seven some odd years ago, before The Chaos Project was ever published, I made a Mighty sprite in the Sonic Advance style. You can see here, that process went through quite a few iterations over the years since then.

Original Sprite (Knuckles’ Chaotix)

First attempt (Not bad, too classic-y)

(Didn’t really change much)

(Oh no it’s worse)

I decided to give him light blue eyes, inspired by this post from the Sonic social media account. I understand that the same decision was made for Mighty’s design in the Archie comics, but I never liked how weird they went with the shoes and gloves.

Knuckles' Chaotix was released 21 years ago today in Japan. Here’s a remix of its game art to celebrate. pic.twitter.com/fEOgCxmNmx

— Sonic the Hedgehog (@sonic_hedgehog) April 21, 2016

At the time, I was figuring, “This is going to be a long-form Sonic story spanning many years. Of course I’m going to use every character at some point. How else will I fill all that space?” Mighty was my testing grounds, to see how well I could convert a Classic sprite into a modern design. Of course, Mania wasn’t a thing back then, so I had to use Knuckles’ Chaotix sprites for reference. But anyways, the first attempt at Mighty’s sprite seen above is among the very earliest images uploaded here on the website, hiding away for all this time. So yeah, I didn’t know how I would use Mighty, I just figured that I eventually would. Then two things happened. One, as I started to write through Season 0, I settled on a clearer tone and setting for the world, which relied a lot on Modern lore and not a lot on Classic lore. And two, Sonic Mania was released, drawing a line between the Modern and Classic worlds harsher than ever before. I was just about ready to abandon Mighty and give in to SEGA’s silly mandates—”the Classic games are a different world, and share absolutely no relation to the world where current Sonic games take place.” But then I got to Season 1, realized that the loose scattering of episodes I had planned were lacking something, and constructed a slightly stronger overarching plot revolving around the return of Fang. I still wasn’t sure about Mighty, but I knew the floodgates were open, so I left myself an opening. When everyone is trying to take account of who is or isn’t present when the Rebellion is forming in S1 E1, people start asking about those who aren’t. And although he is cut off, Knuckles asks about a name beginning with the letter “M”. I thought that was pretty subtle, but Yuni Oha at least saw through it immediately. I suppose there aren’t a lot of other “M” names in Sonic.

Generating a personality for Mighty was a different story. The post-reboot Archie comics gave him rage issues that he’s constantly trying to keep in check. That didn’t seem quite right to me. As most of us already know, Mighty in Chaotix was just a draw-over of Sonic’s sprites. The result was a character who shared Sonic’s poses and expressions, with all the confidence and cockiness that came with them. Mania also showed him as a bit of a show-off with pride in his strength. To flesh that out, I decided to fold it in with some…armadillo traits, I guess. He has his guard up all the time, both figuratively and literally. He’s a little more reserved, a little more laid back, and, as Vector described him, defensive and smooth under pressure. That’s the perceived difference between a hedgehog and an armadillo that originally led to the decision of Sonic being a hedgehog. Quills are sharp and offensive. A shell is smooth and defensive. The result, interestingly enough, turned out feeling a bit like an echo of Sonic’s past to me. Mighty has that aloofness that was often associated with Sonic in the late Classic and early Adventure eras. In my opinion, anyways.

Also worth mentioning the Ray tease. As uncertain as I was about brining in Mighty, Ray was even less so. But, thanks mostly to Mania, the two characters are now pretty much inextricably linked, so using him as Mighty’s motivation here was just the logical way to go. An amusing suggestion made by this tease is that the “Missing” poster featuring both characters in Sonic Generations is most likely canon. Ray actually did go missing, and Mighty made himself disappear to search for him.

Moving on, there was an attempt made in this episode to keep things just a little bit more lighthearted and fun than the last episode. It’s been an unfortunate trend coming to my attention that this series just isn’t quite as fun as it used to be, with plots getting darker and characters maturing further. I did my best to include at least one good joke in nearly every scene, up until the climax. Special attention was paid to Eggman, who’s had nearly all of his comedic appeal stamped out by this point. Having him in a situation that wasn’t the typical “I’m going to kill you” interaction he usually has with the rest of the Sonic cast gave the perfect opportunity to bring back his more zany, eccentric personality.

Juggling the huge number of characters in this episode was, of course, another big issue. It’s an unfortunate shortcoming of this episode that we really didn’t get to follow up on any of the fights that happened in the climax in more than trivial ways. Hero and Bruno fighting each other was theoretically a big deal, but it happened, and now it’s done, and no one got the chance to talk about it. Same goes for the Chaotix. Cream lost her fight, and no one has said anything about that. There just wasn’t the time, really.

I’ll probably come up with more to say later, but for now, it’s on to the trivia!

• This episode’s title is very straightforward. Continuing with the Marvel references, it is, effectively, the equivalent of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” which actually came before Civil War.
  • In hindsight, it might not have been a bad idea to switch around these titles. But I wanted the premiere itself to maintain the Civil War moniker, since it’s more attention-grabbing, and regardless, we learn a lot more about Agent Black in this episode than we did in the last.
• Only one location (arguably zero) from a previous Sonic game appeared in this episode, that being the Wood Zone, a scrapped level from Sonic 2. Given that it’s completely inaccessible in any game, I think it’d be fair to say that it’s the single best hidden location on Westside Island, making it a great place for a rebel base.
  • As it turns out, the post-reboot Archie comics beat me to that conclusion, placing Knothole Village in the Wood Zone for the same reason. interestingly enough, I was actually thinking about calling Camp Beta “Knothole” as a joke/reference before I realized that Archie beat me to it. I don’t mind making Archie jokes, but I don’t want it to look like I’m actually using Archie lore.
  • Although it isn’t from a previous game, there is another notable location in Whiteout Zone. Although no such location has been named previously, the name may still be familiar. The implication is that this is the location which appeared in S0 E16 Project: Whiteout. In that episode, an Omega from an unspecified time in the future is attempting to hunt down Shadow through a snowy tundra, claiming that he has betrayed humanity and must be taken in. It can be interpreted that this episode may be an alternate timeline version of that same event, now involving a little bit more than just Shadow and Omega, but still matching the same basic premise.
• In the first scene of this episode, Eggman, five years later, follows up on the promise he made to Team Chaotix at the end of Sonic Heroes, that he would pay them once he conquered the world. Should’ve happened in Forces, honestly, but it once again falls to me to pick up the slack in Sonic continuity. This fact served as a major inspiration for the creation of Vector’s current character arc.
• All of the “oddities” that Tails finds in the SCOPE data are explained by the end of the episode, except for one—a period of deleted logs “a while” before Shadow was found by Eggman. What was in those logs, and why were they deleted? I can’t say just yet, but I can say that there was a hint left a long time ago.
• This episode is the first to give us the name of “Sonar the Hedgehog,” the Controller to come before Sonic. “Sonar,” an abbreviation of “sonic radar” refers to the detection of objects by the sound waves that bounce off of them. What does this have to do with the character? We’ll find out. Eventually.
• Vector’s detective agency spells out the acronym VICDA, pronounced quite a bit like Vector’s name with a Brooklyn accent. It was originally going to be “Vector’s Certified Imperial Detective Agency,” before I realized the potential joke and switched around the words to fit it.
• Vector’s flashback to the agency takes place a short time after S2 E10 Heads or Tails, confirming an interesting connection to that episode’s plot. In that episode, Tails’ father, Clicks, attempted to contact the Rebellion using the same “breaking eggs” code seen again here with Vector. It is quickly confirmed that this is a code of “the network”, which Clicks is newly revealed to be a vital part of.
  • This is actually reflective of a change made to S2 E10 soon before publishing. Clicks’ code was originally planned to involve bakers and the number of eggs used to make a cake, with the knowledge that Vector was eventually going to use the omelet code, so it had to be different in some way. It was suggested to me that the baker code was weird and should be replaced with an omelet code, and I decided, “You know what? I can make that work.” This means that Clicks was not originally intended to be associated with Vector or the network, but I think I like it better this way. Heads or Tails focused on all the terrible things that he did, so I like that we’re seeing in hindsight how hard he was working to make up for them. It also explains a little better why Eggman targeted him.
  • It is also strongly implied that Cream’s mother Vanilla is a member of the network, as she was shown doing underground activities in S2 E14 The Weapon’s Will, and Vector discusses a cook in Carnival City matching her description.
• In response to being told what’s happening with the Rebellion, Vector responds, “Broke up? What, like a band?” This is sensible for Vector, given the music aficionado he is, but it is also a Marvel quote, not to Civil War, but to Infinity War, spoken by Bruce Banner after learning about he events of Civil War for the first time.
• In this episode, Vector once again shows a bit of his religious side with a use of the word “God”.
  • He appears to be rubbing off on Mighty over the course of this episode, who also uses the word by the end.
• Not long after the mention of Carnival City (the name given to the setting of Night Carnival in Sonic Rush), Vector mentions Carnival Island (the setting of Knuckles’ Chaotix) by name for the first time in CP-canon. This unfortunate coincidence couldn’t be avoided, and probably led to some confusion.
• In his fight against Cheese, Shadow picks up the Chao and throws it at a wall. This is a sequence of events which most Sonic fans have likely seen at least once in their lives, in the SA2 Chao Garden. Shadow even implied as much—this isn’t the first Chao he’s picked up and thrown in exactly this way.
• Agent Black’s commission number, 00031427, is slightly higher than that of the Commander’s, implying that he became an agent relatively soon after. The numbers also kinda sorta spell out the word “BLACK” if you squint.
• When the two sides of the Civil War meet to reaffirm their stances before the final fight, Espio uses the phrase, “You know my stance on evil.” This is referencing a well known quote from Sonic Heroes. “Evil must die! Behold, ninja power!” It was my intention to call that quote to mind without actually claiming that Espio planned on killing Shadow.
• Espio shows off a new move in the fight, “Chroma Refract.” I don’t love the name, but the point is to call back to “Chroma Camo,” suggesting that Espio is using the same power he already has, just in a new way.
• When Omega defeats Rouge, he delivers a “casualty report.” This is a quote to Sonic Forces Episode Shadow, one of the stranger things he said while being attacked by Infinite.
• As Mighty leads Shadow away from the battlefield, he declares that he and Shadow “make a pretty good mix.” This is an obscure reference to an unofficial time when Shadow and Mighty were seen together—Sonic Megamix, a fangame by the now famous Simon Thomley aka “Stealth,” who would go on to put Mighty in Sonic Mania. But not Shadow. Missed opportunity, if you ask me.
• This episode answers a long-standing Sonic mystery which was last mentioned in S1 E5 Team Chaotix and the Case of the Computer Room Caper. How was the moon un-destroyed after SA2? Apparently, it was by a combination of physics that make sense if you squint (a Sonic standard) and a cleverly designed moon base (not unlike the explanation given by Sonic X).
• Shadow, Mighty, and Knuckles travel up to the moon base using a space transporter of the same type seen in Eggman’s base in SA2. Here, it is explained why this technology is so rarely seen elsewhere in the Sonic world.
  • This technology was also seen in S0 E32 The Time of Reckoning Part 2, where it was apparently built directly into the Hard Boiled Heavies to aid their retreats.
• Shadow “hacks” the SCOPE computer using a technique seen in Shadow the Hedgehog—hitting it really hard. It worked back then, and it still works now.

That’s all for now! Next up is part 3 of Silver & Zero, so stay tuned!

-And until next time, remember to live and learn every day!

Review: Season 2, Episode 14

This episode may not be a comedy, or any strange stretch of logic moreso than usual, and yet this was still one of the most…odd experiences I’ve had, writing an episode. I was able to tell just a short while into the process that the episode was going to turn out awkwardly paced, tonally confused, and possibly one of my longest episodes ever. (I believe it made top 3). I suppose that shouldn’t be surprising, considering that I was juggling 8 main characters on top of large crowds and a few background characters. Going in at the beginning, I knew very little about what the content, the meat of this episode was really going to be. The interactions between Tails and Cyber Sonic have been planned since before this season began, but all this time later, all I really knew was that I needed some sort of event which would lead to that climax. I figured that Shadow would also be a necessity to bring the Chaos Emerald into play, but then I just kept going in circles, failing to come up with any substantial content that could fill an episode with just Shadow and Tails tracking down Sonic. It was only when I got around to S2 E4 Before I Sleep that it came to my attention how abruptly Omega’s rivalry with Metal Sonic was going to end. When I began that plot, there wasn’t necessarily meant to be a lot behind it. Just Omega being Omega. But once it was brought up for that second time, I sort of became committed to seeing it through as a complete character arc.

So, this episode naturally became the right time to bring that issue back into the fold. Metal Sonic is gone now, so what became of Omega’s obsession? I quickly formulated the idea of Omega running off with Cyber Sonic, imagining that it would make a great “insult-to-injury” addition to the trauma that Tails would be put through in getting turned down at the end of that scene. And that gave me more of a climax, but still not much in terms of episode content. I was still lacking in any substantial plot threat that would lead into this vital climax in a meaningful way. It eventually came time to start writing the episode, and I still wasn’t sure where I’d be going with it. I adopted the intro scene that was scrapped from last episode (the training course), and threw the movie night subplot on top of it because I was still thinking the episode would need as much help along in length as it could get. Using that scrapped intro got me thinking a bit about the intro that ended up replacing it—I wasn’t originally planning on bringing in Fox or Camp Beta for this episode, I was just going to let them be out of the picture for a while, and maybe get a prison break episode later down the road. Even as I was writing the pre-titlecard teaser, I was thinking at the time that Fox would be on his own, not rescuing his comrades just yet. But then I realized how silly it would be to seemingly have this plot running with Camp Beta, but then not go forward with it when I’m specifically looking for content to fill the episode anyways. So that finally got me somewhere. But still, it was beginning to sound like a filler episode with an unexpectedly important ending. I needed something that would stir up the emotional pot, so we could get a good look at what Tails and Omega were thinking prior to their Sonic encounter. Cream just so happened to serve those purposes excellently.

Tails struggling with ideas of leadership and independence has been an important part of his character in this series, and putting him in charge of the safety and well being of Cream was meant to be a nice way to show off how he’s developing in that area. Plus, Tails and Cream are the kids of the group, and I figured that showing a nice, wholesome friendship between kids would be a refreshing change of pace compared to the character drama I usually work with. Drawing a connection from Cream to Omega was not so easy. It occurred to me pretty much immediately that Gemerl would make a very nice go-between for that purpose. More on that in a bit.

I know perfectly well that Cream has gotten worse than the short end of the stick in the series so far. She only played an important role in one single Season 1 episode, and even then she was just a passive observer of the Chaotix story. Even Big has done better for himself, and he wasn’t even intended to be part of the main cast when I started writing! One by one, the lesser-used characters have been getting new roles assigned to them to keep things fresh—Charmy is a doctor, Amy is a counselor, Vector is a defector. But Cream hasn’t even gotten that. I knew it was time to at least make a stronger attempt, which is why a very unique Cream-focused episode was already in the works (coming soon, though not as soon as I originally thought). I figured, on top of everything else, a chance to set her up a bit for that episode couldn’t hurt. So, to be continued on that.

So anyways, with Cream in the fold, I now had, at minimum, 4 main characters to juggle (where I usually like to limit myself to 2, 3, or separated pairs of 2), and Fox on top of that, not to mention Sonic. Getting Shadow kidnapped was the quick and painless solution to freeing up my hands a bit better. But then, of course, I had to go and add 2 more characters to replace him.

I always knew, from the moment I decided to include Cream in the cast, that I’d have to bring in Vanilla at some point. At worst, it would’ve been a free idea for a filler episode. But I didn’t have a clue what I would do with it. What I knew of Vanilla as a character came pretty much exclusively from Sonic X (not that there was very much else to know). I didn’t have a grasp on what sort of role she could possibly play, let alone how I could justify leaving her out of the cast once introduced. I certainly didn’t want to kill her off (though I’d be lying if I said the thought didn’t cross my mind), so I was always left in the awkward territory of “maybe some other season.” But then, once I decided that I wanted to use a Gizoid reference for Metal Sonic’s story, I figured it was finally time for me to do some proper research on the dark corner of the Sonic universe that is Sonic on the GBA. I think I told most of this story already. So skipping to the end, while I was theoretically aware of the existence of Gemerl, it was only after doing this research that I became aware of just how inextricably linked he should hypothetically be to Cream. (Which makes it really weird to me that they didn’t take the opportunity to acknowledge his existence in Rush, but whatever.)

So with Gemerl obviously not following Cream around in this story, the only other possibility was him having stayed behind with Vanilla, which meant using one would mandate using the other. Either way, Gemerl was my chance to make the Gizoid references relevant, and he was useful for both Cream and Omega in this episode, so finally, the rest of the plot fell together.

Of course, next came the problem of actually using Gemerl. I decided that the IDW comic direction of him being a dedicated protector of Cream & family worked well for my purposes, but there were plenty of other problems. He comes from a game with zero dialogue, where he almost exclusively uses the abilities of other machines, rather than his own. So what does he do? What is his personality like? The Archie comics and the IDW comics had two entirely different answers to that second question. Is he snarky yet friendly, the second coming of Emerl as Archie says? Or is he stern and mechanical as IDW suggests, as the one still frame of him post-reprogramming at the end of Advance 3 would seem to imply? I wasn’t necessarily happy with either option, and I certainly didn’t want to look like I was riding off of the back of either comic. But with those options in mind, I chose a path with elements of both. It seems to me that Gemerl’s programming should be a complete mess. Data from a sentient machine reformatted for a non-sentient machine that gained sentience and then was reprogrammed even further. I wanted to go for something that felt a little patched together, not quite normal, but not lacking in emotion either. A lot of inspiration definitely came from the direction of Star Wars, a robot by the name of K-2SO, an imperial droid who was reprogrammed to work for the rebellion, resting an odd personality quirk of a total lack of any filter, openly stating “any thought that pops into his circuits.” That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to go for, but it was pretty close. I wanted a very literal personality, stating everything exactly as it is. I thought that would be a reasonable play off the Gizoid tradition of constant observation and analysis of the world in order to acquire new skills, filed down into something that isn’t really a Gizoid anymore. Of course, if Gemerl were to appear in a Sonic game again, I would most certainly have some immediate contradictions to deal with, but seeing as Gemerl’s first and last appearance was on the GBA, I don’t expect that to be a problem.

I suppose it’s also worth mentioning the choice to call him Gemerl rather than G-merl. On one hand, the Advance 3 manual, serving as his only appearance, calls him G-merl. On the other hand…literally everything else calls him Gemerl. Personally, I was introduced to the character through “The History of Sonic the Hedgehog” book, which says very little about him, but refers to him as Gemerl. And there’s also the comics, of course. I’m aware that the intended Japanese pronunciation of the name is “Jee-meh-roo,” which would imply that G-merl is the more accurate interpretation when taken literally. But I don’t know that it’s meant to be taken literally. The point of the Japanese name change from Eh-meh-roo to Jee-meh-roo is that it is just one single, slight change the the first of the three characters that make up the name, possibly sort of like a pun. By that token, the localized name should similarly change only one letter—making Gemerl more reasonable than G-merl. Either way, I kind of like the potential thought that both are correct—Eggman created G-merl, which Tails reprogrammed into Gemerl. That would certainly explain the shift from one name to the other ever afterwards.

Back on topic, Gemerl’s abilities was the other issue to deal with. How many abilities does he share with Emerl? We certainly don’t see many of Emerl’s abilities used, if any at all, which implies that there isn’t much. And yet, all we know about Gemerl’s backstory is that he was built using Emerl’s data, which implies that there should at least be some sort of connection. I decided to go with Gemerl having an amalgamation of fighting skills captured by Emerl, but without the ability to capture any himself. It seemed like the best way to respect what little lore we have. And then, of course, there’s the whole “interface and integrate” thing. Once again, the term “interface” was borrowed from IDW (I actually don’t know what Archie did about it), as there is no actual word put to the ability in the original game. I don’t entirely understand why Gemerl has this ability, as it doesn’t synchronize at all with what a Gizoid is expected to do, but regardless, he merges freely with machines in the game so that must be one of his primary skills. There was a brief thought of taking advantage of this to have him merge with Omega (probably inspired by The Sega Scourge), but that just didn’t fit with anything else I was going for. Gemerl can always come back later if I want to try my hand at that, though. Anyways, I had to make use of that ability somehow, and Cyber Sonic being how he is was a pretty reasonable excuse to bring it up. In fact, as soon as I realized that possibility, the problem became figuring out how to justify Gemerl not taking the Cyber out of Cyber Sonic in this episode.

Speaking of, I somehow haven’t talked about Sonic yet, even though he was the driving force behind this episode. After dropping the big lore bomb that is Cyber Sonic at the end of Steeled Heart, and then letting it sit in the background for two full episodes, I knew that a lot would be riding on this episode doing the concept justice. I wanted to introduce Cyber Sonic as a terrifying and seemingly unstoppable force before introducing him as a character, so that the audience could see from the standpoint of Sonic’s friends, but still be able to judge the character both ways in the end. While everything definitely met my minimum expectations, I don’t think I quite hit it out of the park. There’ a lot of questionable things going on with Cyber Sonic’s motivations and actions, and while I tried to justify them all to some subtle degree, I can see how a reader trying to figure out what this character has to with Sonic could become very confused. The issue is that he isn’t Sonic. I tried to make it clear that, however real his memories may be, he doesn’t treat them as his. His personality isn’t just meaner Sonic or nicer Metal Sonic, it’s a complete jumble of both of them. Where the personalities of the two may have conflicted, something that is neither of them would have to form in its place. There’s still a little more time get this all across in writing, but looking at this episode in a vacuum, my inability to get that properly explained is definitely one of the most glaring flaws.

Now, on to the trivia!

• This episode’s title, “The Weapon’s Will,” refers directly to the experience stated to be shared by Sonic and Omega in the episode, of being treated as a weapon despite having free will. Indirectly, it also refers to the connection made between Emerl and Shadow in the story of Sonic Battle, both being weapons who were given a soul by Professor Gerald. I thought this would be a nice way to cover as many of the multitude of characters featured in this episode as possible.
  • This version of the title went through several iterations, including, “The Weapon’s Soul,” “Weapon with a Heart,” and other such permutations. Obviously, using the word “soul” would’ve made the Battle reference a bit clearer, but I didn’t quite care for the way it sounded.
  • The episode had a different working title, “Cyber Shell, Beating Heart.” I wanted the word Cyber in there to definitively say, “This is the episode where I finally do something about Cyber Sonic. It was meant to be a double meaning, where you might expect it to refer to the humanity aspect of having a beating heart, when in reality, it actually meant beating as in defeating, as the episode ends by showing Cyber Sonic “overcoming” those aspects of Sonic that held him back. The Cyber Shell is Beating the Heart. This title was scrapped due to its excessive similarity and inferiority to the title already used in “Steeled Heart.” Regardless, I wanted a title that could cover either Tails or Omega in addition to Sonic. Not super thrilled with the final result, but it’s good enough.
    • Cybershell? Who’s that? Never heard of ’em.
• This episode is the first to feature the characters Vanilla the Rabbit, Gemerl the Gizoid, and NiGHTS the Nightmaren. It is also the first episode to directly reference the character Emerl.
  • What, you thought NiGHTS didn’t count as a character? Why wouldn’t they?
• The movie shown for movie night, Chao in Space 2, is a famous Sonic Adventure reference. Billboards and other in-universe ads in SA1 and SA2 featured fake movie posters for Chao In Space and Chao In Space 2, respectively.
  • The Chao in Space series is generally assumed to be a mixture of Star Wars and Star Trek into the Sonic universe, and, as such, references to Chao in Space in this episode also featured references to Star Wars and the Sonic franchise.
    • When Tails encourages Shadow to go to movie night, he suggests that Chao in Space 2 is being watched because it is superior to other titles in the series, primarily to due to its introduction of an anti-hero character. This is a direct reflection of Sonic Adventure 2, which is often considered to be the penultimate Sonic story for similar reasons.
    • Shadow’s confusion at the notion of 2 coming before 1 is a Star Wars reference, as many newcomers are confused by the notion that Star Wars Episodes 4-6 came out before Episodes 1-3.
    • The movie is shown to start with a loud orchestral track accompanying an introductory text crawl, just like every main Star Wars movie. For similar reasons, the text crawl is followed by a shot from space. Like Star Wars Episode 5 (the second one), the space shot is followed by something crashing down towards a planet.
    • The small spaceship caught fire in space. This is a reference to cheesy sci-fi movies that don’t obey simple laws of physics, such as there being no air in space for fires to burn. This is also a reference to the Sonic franchise, for similar reasons. Sonic games rarely care about there being no air in space…
    • Before the opening, a company logo is shown, “NiGHTS into Screens”. This is technically also a Sonic Adventure reference, where NiGHTS is a SEGA character which similarly appears in advertisements throughout both games. The implication is that all in-universe appearances of NiGHTS are actually this company’s ads.
  • Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the space to make any Star Trek jokes this time around. Maybe next time.
• The primary location where this episode takes place, Carnival City, is intended to be the location of the Sonic Rush level, Night Carnival. The proximity of Night Carnival to Cream’s house is the only known point of reference for where in the world Cream’s house is located, so including the area as such was pretty much a necessity for the episode.
  • This marks the first appearance of any location from Sonic Rush in The Chaos Project (as well as any location that originates from the Advance series).
• In this episode, Cyber Sonic is shown to share Metal Sonic’s Black Shield ability from SA2 Battle, albeit a smaller, single-direction version of it. It was necessary to have him looking cool while fighting so many opponents at once.
• When Omega accuses Gemerl of being no better than an Eggman robot, Gemerl responds with “Response filed under psychological heading: ‘projection’.” Basically the robot equivalent of “I know you are, but what am I?” This was also a reference to a similar line said to Sonic in the IDW comics. (Response filed under: “sass”.)
• When Tails shows Sonic the Chaos Emerald, Sonic accuses him of trying to trade him a fake Emerald. This is a callback to SA2 where a similar accusation led to Tails accidentally revealing that the Emerald was indeed fake, nearly causing Sonic’s death. Tails’ unflinching response to the accusation was supposed to show that there’s been some growth since then.
• When Gemerl engages Sonic in battle, he says “Let’s play.” This is a (heartbreaking) reference to Emerl, whose entire relationship with Sonic in Sonic Battle was formed around the innocent desire to fight, thinking of it as playing. “Let’s play” were probably the two words that Emerl spoke most during his lifetime. The implication could be that Gemerl has some residual memories or personality left over from Emerl.
• When Cyber Sonic asks for Tails’ help, Tails responds with a line that is eerily similar to something spoken to him by Metal Sonic in S2 E4. “I am not your friend. I owe you nothing.”
  • Top that off with Tails’ oddly specific claims of stopping at nothing, crossing any line in order to get Sonic back, and we may have some reason to be worried for Tails’ future…
• At the end of the episode, Sonic and Omega are shown to be at the former of location of Final Egg, the last level from Sonic’s story in Sonic Adventure, deep in the heart of the Mystic Ruins. To my knowledge, the location was never actually destroyed within the game, but the implication here is that it was then or at some point soon after. What it is that Sonic wants at the Final Egg facility remains to be seen.

And that’s all for now! Stay tuned for the next episode!

-And until then, remember to live and learn every day!

Some Thoughts on the Sonic Advance Trilogy+

Hey, all. Sorry for the lack of updates, but writing for the midseason premiere is chugging along at a pretty slow pace. So, I thought I’d offer a little bonus content in the meantime.

I’ve never played a Sonic Advance game. (Unless you count “Sonic Ultimate Flash.”) I owned a Nintendo DS and a small handful of GBA games for it, but the Sonic titles just never caught my eye for some reason. I say “some reason,” but I was actually pretty adamantly anti-2D Sonic for a significant portion of that time. Honestly it’s a miracle that I was somehow convinced to buy Sonic 4 on launch day. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the Classics that I started off with, it’s just that I saw 2D as outdated and irrelevant. Or maybe it was Sonic 4 that created that opinion? I don’t know, it was a long time ago. Anyways, what little I knew of the Advance games came from a combination of minor references in the instruction manuals like Sonic Heroes, adaptations from Sonic X, the fanmade attempt to recreate it for PC in “Sonic Ultimate Flash,” and the occasional screenshot or Youtube clip of the first game seen over long periods of time without much context. I think it was that last thing that really colored my opinion of the series as a whole. It looked like a dull, repetitive 2D game that existed for the sole purpose of being another 2D game. So I was never really interested.

Finally, this week, I decided it was time to break down those assumptions. With Metal Sonic now having a Gizoid-based skill capture system, there were research purposes involved, but I chose to finally bite the bullet and get myself educated. And here I’ve taken down my impressions. Do keep in mind that I still haven’t played any of it, so these impressions are all based on the gameplay footage that I studied.

Sonic Advance 1 seems to be exactly what I thought it was. It still doesn’t look like much fun to me, and I can see why. The screen is too small, the level design seems just okay, and the story is nonexistent. Even the Super Sonic boss looks pretty forgettable. And I guess Super Sonic just decided to fly around in orbit for a few straight days after that? So that was weird. And the music, oh, the music, if you can call it that. One consistent trend through this series is that the composer(s) clearly didn’t have a clue how to use a GBA sound chip properly. The tunes themselves get better and better under these self-imposed limitations as the games go on, but the soundfront remains nearly intolerable. I see the same thing said a lot more often about Sonic Chronicles, and I do see the comparison. Except that a poor use of the DS sound hardware is, at worst, inoffensive, while the poorly-used GBA is just…grating. And then there are the battle themes and title theme of Chronicles which are all fire, I don’t care what anyone else says. The GBA games definitely had their share of catchy tunes as well, but unlike in Chronicles, the sound quality didn’t get any better. The Advance Trilogy also has this weird fetish with Angel Island, that started in this game with, well, Angel Island Zone. It was actually pretty cool seeing a medley of S3&K stage gimmicks mixed into one level, I’m just not sure what the point of it being here was. I guess it’s supposed to explain why Knuckles is here? And the reveal of Mecha Knuckles I guess, which was even weirder and more random. It’s not like they bothered to tell a story anywhere else. Anyways, if I’d bought and played this, I probably wouldn’t have been too excited to pick up a sequel. But that would’ve been a mistake.

Sonic Advance 2 quickly turned around my assumptions about the trilogy. With the full range of aerial tricks, Sonic’s moveset feels diversified and fleshed out in a way that truly feels like a proper step up and evolution from the Classics, without completely rewriting the book on what the core gameplay elements need to be (looking at you, Sonic Rush). Sonic, for the first time ever in gameplay, looks like the action hero he was always meant to be, with tricks and backflips under full control of the player, and they’re actually useful! Honestly, I’m so disappointed that Sonic’s moveset got nerfed so hard in Sonic Rush, with tricks being for a different purpose and only useable under certain conditions, because I think I would’ve enjoyed that game more if it played more like Sonic Advance 2. They also…sorta tried with the story, I guess. I was expecting there to be a lot more fanfare around the introduction of Cream as a character, but she’s just kind of there, and you’re supposed to accept that. It’s even weirder that it’s just Sonic’s story, except that you can also play as other characters minus the story. No complaints about the action movie endings though. But the coolest thing about this game, I think, is how they really came to embrace the pixel art style. Given that I’ve made some sprite animations myself, it should be obvious that I have an appreciation for the style, which this game pretty much singlehandedly created. Seeing how Sonic moves in this game (and perhaps even more so in Sonic Battle, more on that in a minute), the existence of all those good old fashioned Newgrounds flash animations makes so much sense!! I saw it said in the Youtube comments that, controlled by a skilled player, this game looks more like a quality sprite animation than it does like a game, and I wholeheartedly agree. It’s amazing what they managed to pull off, compared to just about any game on comparable hardware. It’s like these sprites were born to be used in sprite animations, and it would be such a waste if things like Super Mario Bros. Z didn’t use these sprites to their fullest. Anyways, Advance 2’s use of Angel Island comes in the form of Sky Canyon Zone, which isn’t explicitly stated to be Angel Island, but you find Knuckles there and the map depicts it as a floating island. Once again, probably meant to be the excuse for why Knuckles is here? Still doesn’t make a lick of sense. Of course, if a well put together story was what I was looking for, then I was about to get it.

Sonic Battle. It’s quite an experience, I’ll say that. A GBA game with actual 3D graphics? I don’t know of any other big name that dared attempt something like that. But the Sonic franchise is nothing if not daring. My impression of the gameplay is that it looks pretty far on the repetitive side, but I suppose all fighting games look like that, and it’s hard to tell how much fun it would be without handling the controls myself. So I’ll stick to talking about the story. And it was…a story. Like an actual one, not just faking it like Advance 2. It’s really hard to figure out exactly what I want to say about it. It was definitely a rocky start. Sonic’s story is contrived and repetitive. Sonic finds an Eggman robot on the beach, and it mutters something about “conquering all,” so he thinks, “Let’s repair it and then give it all seven Chaos Emeralds!” Seriously!? It’s utter nonsense! Even Sonic isn’t that dumb! But at least things pick up from there. The story proceeds to take a deep dive into each character through their interactions with Emerl, developing Emerl all the way through. The attention to detail with each character and how their personalities interact is honestly quite masterful, which makes its fast-and-loose handling of lore and world building all the more confusing. 7 green Chaos Emeralds, 4 of which are casually shattered offscreen? A Master Emerald (as if there are multiple) appearing to Sonic out of nowhere, immediately getting shattered and then never mentioned again? Sonic and Tails living together in suburbia? Knuckles guarding an altar…in the mountains a short walk north of Central City? Rouge owning a casino? Cream sharing an apartment with Amy, despite this seeming to be a part of the Advance Trilogy where Cream clearly lives in a rural home with her mother? It’s all so close, yet so off. And the weirdest part is that it’s canon. I would almost still want to say that it isn’t, but there’s this awkward chain involved. It’s canon to the Advance Trilogy, because Advance 3 follows up on the story. I might dismiss the whole set, except that Advance 1 introduced Cream, a canon character. I might still ignore that, and pretend that Heroes was her introduction, but that still doesn’t quite work. The Blaze who appears in Generations is strongly implied to be the Blaze from the Rush games, and the Rush games, in turn, call back to the Advance games, which call back to Battle. And here I thought Sonic canon was a mess when I was ignoring these games, somehow it’s even worse now. And then there’s Sonic Chronicles, which was clearly meant to tie a neat little bow on the entire Sonic handheld saga up to that point, especially Battle, and yet it has since been summarily decanonized. And I’m in an even weirder position. I’ve already stated that Chronicles just took place in an adjacent timeline/dimension, basically so that I can adhere to the current canon of the Nocturnus not being real. But if they were real in another dimension, and they invented the Gizoids in that dimension, then who invented the Gizoids here? Some potential answers are already brewing, but it is just one more oddity. Anyways, back on topic. Can we talk about the fact that Eggman casually destroyed multiple nearby stars instantaneously? Purely as a means to the end of getting a fighting robot on his side, no less? Eat your heart out, Starkiller Base, Eggman did it first, I guess. But seriously, this is an absurd amount of power for Eggman to have, and it’s almost completely meaningless. A faster-than-light weapon would be crazy enough as it is. For some reason, this game just doesn’t seem to take its drastic contributions to lore in any serious way. I don’t get this game. I like the ambition, but I just don’t get it. What I do understand is how this game led to this whole corner of the universe being held in such high regard, and I’m glad to have experienced it myself.

After the ambitious rollercoaster that is Sonic Battle, Sonic Advance 3 is an awfully lukewarm sendoff to the series. The improvements Advance 2 had over the first title are still here, albeit with level design that seemed to be maybe just a slight step down from its predecessor. The big change is the pair-up mechanic. I love the idea, and it seems like it adds a lot of variety and replayability, but wow does it look like it breaks the game if you know what you’re doing. I like the idea behind the hub worlds, but the minigames, lengthy character switching mechanics, and Chao collecting all look a little bit obtrusive to the flow of gameplay. The story is as bland as the first two. I think it might be inspired by Sonic X, with Eggman intentionally inducing Chaos Control to cause dimensional shenanigans, which is amusingly circular considering that Sonic X used Cream from the beginning because of Advance. And although that sounds like an interesting place to start, it goes nowhere, and it seems like it’s only there to justify the hub world system. As an epilogue to Battle, it’s honestly pretty disappointing. It seems like you’re supposed to care about the fact that you’re seeing this robot that looks like Emerl, but the characters never comment on it, so why should you care? This game’s rendition of Angel Island comes in the form of Chaos Angel Zone and Altar Emerald Zone, and somehow, even though this is the only member of the trilogy to feature the Master Emerald, this is also the only one that doesn’t clearly indicate that you’re on Angel Island, and you’re forced to imply it from the ancient ruins and the presence of the Master Emerald. Seriously, what is up with these games and Angel Island!? It’s certainly not needed to justify Knuckles this time. With the universe being shattered into pieces, the Knuckles and Master Emerald could have been anywhere else. Meanwhile, Sonic Battle, the one that actually tries to have a story where the Emeralds matter, tries to retcon Angel Island out of existence for some reason. I don’t get it. Anyways, the Super Sonic boss is pretty cool, though the design of the final boss isn’t particularly intimidating nor memorable. And then that’s it. I like the idea of Gemerl remaining with Cream at the end of it all, it feels like a nice wrap-up to the story (even though Battle is the only actual story that matters in this context). Which would be great, except that Gemerl proceeds to never be seen nor mentioned for the remainder to Sonic game history, which leaves me asking what the point of it all was, and leaves me wondering again whether any of it is really meant to be canon. Seriously, if they wanted it to be canon, where was Gemerl in Rush? It just confuses me.

In conclusion…this was an interesting experience. It’s always nice to learn more about Sonic lore, but in many ways, I was left more confused than I was when I started. What’s the result in terms of The Chaos Project? I expect to be able to use this lore to some extent, but I feel I may need to leave the caveat that this remains a pretty low tier of canon. Something resembling these things happened, but there are definitely some differences. Assume the obviously non-canon things didn’t happen, and as to the rest, any differences will be made clear at a later time.

-And until next time, remember to live and learn every day!