Sonic The Hedgehog Timeline Part 1 | The Classic Era 

It's important to note that Sonic X was written by members of Sonic team and often elaborates on events and specific things in the Sonic canon while also telling it's own non-canon story like explaining why Maria was on the ark to begin with, that being her disease and Shadow being used as a way to cure maria while also doing research for G.U.N.

Here's a little headcanon I've always had: In the Japanese manual of Sonic 1, it says Eggman and Sonic have been enemies who have fought several times before. My personal headcanon is that SegaSonic the Hedgehog was one such adventure. It's also said that making the animal-powered Badniks and using the Chaos Emeralds were new ideas Eggman came up with for Sonic 1, and neither appear in SegaSonic. It could also serve as the way Sonic first met Mighty and Ray before Mania.

Imma just say this now....CD comes before 2. That is all Edit: I forgot about Origins canonizing this when I wrote this comment

I can see why Metal Sonic became such a fan favourite, tbh I have always loved his design too. But... I always preferred the Sonic & Knuckles Mecha Sonic. That thing is badass.

The genesis games in particular are in that magic era of gaming where the game gives just enough backstory and is able to convey just enough story to allow your imagination to fill in the rest. Imagining how Sonic 1 can be a coming of age story for Sonic himself, and then in 2 that baton of growth is passed onto Tails showing how Sonic inspires others, a central pillar of his character, haha. CD's opening sets the stage and frames Sonic's character and world, getting me hyped to play out that fantasy. Then 3&K is just epic through and through. It's also so fun to imagine the culture and history of each and every island given just enough details in the environments to let the imagination run wild - the classic Sonic games often REALLY feel like plunging into ancient fantasy history like an epic Indiana Jones explorer.

Finally! a timeline video made by an actual fan

The seven Dragon Balls don't turn you super, they grant a wish. So the Chaos Emeralds and Super forms, while similar to the Dragon Balls and Super Saiyan forms, are not the same in execution.

Way back in 2015 I made my own Sonic timeline for the Classic era. I included Sonic 1 8-bit in my timeline as a What If Sequel for Sonic 1 on the Genesis. My reason being at the end of the final boss of the 16-bit version the player can jump to attack Eggman's Egg Mobile one last time or let him escape unharmed. If you do attack him, his Egg Mobile explodes and he runs away with the vehicle on fire. I like to believe if you let Eggman escape unharmed he continues his schemes on South Island, leading of the events of the 8-Bit version. In the perfecf ending of the 8-bit version of Sonic 1 there's an extra cutscene where Sonic uses the Chaos Emeralds to remove the pollution of South Island. For me this the real defeat of Dr Eggman on South Island. If Sonic attack him in the ending of the 16 bit version, the 8 bit version of Sonic 1 never happens.

Finally, someone actually acknowledges how Knuckles’ story in 3&K is an epilogue to Sonic’s 3&K story

My fav story must be black knight. Like how they connect it to unleasched with sonic and amys date and the 2 chili dogs he has in the intro. It actually connects to unleasched

Can't believe how many sonic games there are now🙀 and more sonic games to come 🦔💙

Let's goooooo! Was expecting the Frontiers video to be the last Sonic related content for a while but this has been a pleasant surprise :D

The IDW comics follow the game’s canon, which were started post Sonic Forces

I'm not sure if I would say the music in Sonic R is out of place, I think it fits with the racing quite well, also it rocks, though we can agree on that one.

One time my dad sold all my game consoles (Xbox 360, 3DS) and all I was left with was Sonic Blast as entertainment and it was constant suffering

This is my headcanon for the whole Robotic Sonic doppelganger situation: Silver Sonic was Robotnik's first attempt in making a Robot Sonic and is the only one named "Silver Sonic". After Silver Sonic was defeated easily by Sonic, Robotnik assumed it was because his speed was not enough to compete with Sonic's, so he decides to give the next robotic Sonic the speed it needs to keep up with and possibly beat Sonic. Next up is Metal Sonic. Metal Sonic was made before the events of CD and this robotic Sonic was designed to compete with Sonic's speed. Aside from being given immense speed, he was given the following: The ability to fly, the ability to break through metal spikes, a little bit of Sonic's personality, and...that boost thing he does when you race him. Even though Metal Sonic was faster compared to Silver Sonic, he wasn't fast enough to beat Sonic in a race. Another weakness he had was his durability, and that was one of the factors that led Metal to it's downfall. Next is Mecha Sonic MK 1(this is the Mecha Sonic in Sonic 2 Genesis). Robotnik accepts the fact that Sonic can't be outrun, but he can be beaten in strength (without the Chaos Emeralds or any help) given it wasn't his strong point. So he goes back to Silver Sonic and essentially makes a, somewhat, better version of him. He makes this robotic Sonic bigger, heavier, stronger, more durable, able to shoot his quils, and it can't be bounced back in it's ball form by Sonic. Mecha Sonic was basically a tank, but the problem that Silver Sonic had was increased and added upon too. He was way slower, less versatile, and it kept giving Sonic more openings to attack him. Robotnik went back to the drawing board once again. For Mecha Sonic MK 2, I'd like to think that Robotnik already started designing him after he made Mecha Sonic MK 1 as a contingency plan. After tricking Knuckles, Robotnik gets started on building Mecha Sonic MK 2. For this robo hedgie, Robotnik looks at all the failed robotic Sonics and tries to make a robotic Sonic that has non of their weaknesses. He comes up with a solution to their weaknesses by giving Mecha Sonic MK 2 all of their best feats and then some. He gives Mecha Sonic MK 2 the following feats: Mecha Sonic MK 1's size advantage, strength, and durability; Metal Sonic's color and aggressiveness; Silver Sonic's...eyes (I guess?); made him smarter; and (after figuring out how to harness the power of the Master Emerald) he gives him the ability to absorb the power of the Master Emerald. Like all of it's other robo Hedgie Brothers, Mecha Sonic MK 2 gets defeated by not only Sonic and Tails, but Knuckles too. After Robotnik loses to Hyper Sonic, he lands in the middle of the ocean with nothing and Mecha Sonic was abandoned. Since he no longer has or even know what happened to Mecha Sonic MK 2, he just assumes Mecha failed to Sonic and starts from scratch again. He was on the right track when making Mecha Sonic MK 2, so he just does the same thing but better. Since he doesn't have Mecha MK 2, he just uses one of his other designs instead. He chooses Metal Sonic since he was the best of what he had and gets to rebuilding him and giving him Mecha Sonic's feats. Despite Metal Sonic failing multiple times against Sonic and his friends since then, Eggman still kept using him and improving him. He tried designing a different Robo Sonic (SA1's mysterious robot Sonic), but scrapped that idea.

I see Tails' Adventure to take place near Sky Patrol personally. There's the Sonic/Knux/Fang items and it shows Tails working with significantly more complex machinery than the Tornado.

20:11 I think the Game Gear games have their own timeline that is different than Genesis games timeline (think of it like the OG Dragon Ball movies if you watched), so it's make sense that Knuckles tricked by Eggman for first time in Game Gear title.

I thought Fighters would occur in the classic timeline and foreshadow the fake chaos emerald used in SA2, but I'll wait til the 2nd part, this is a really cool idea!

Your channel has grown so much lately, keep all the amazing Playstation and Sonic content coming

Finally, someone is doing this. Other videos about this topic feel incomplete, they are missing a lot of spin-off games.

With S1SMS, we can say that it can take place after the Genesis version since the Emeralds are this time scattered through the island like what happened in the end of the Genesis version. Sky Base exists after Scrap Brain, this can imply that Robotnik could’ve been moving to another location and was just trying to get his Scrap Brain stuff with him and occasionally try to stop Sonic

24:21: "Sonic, Tails and Knuckles set out to stop this. By that I mean, Sonic does all the real work and the other two stand around..." Pretty much sums the dissatisfactory nature of the 2010s game plots.

This is a pretty damn good video J. I definitely like your reasoning for these games' placements and the reasoning for excluding some of the games makes complete sense. Only games missing from this era seems to be SEGASonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Fighters but I figure you'll either address that in one of the later videos or understandably couldn't figure out a place on the timeline for them, which makes sense considering those two arcade games are kinda hard to place. Overall though can't wait to see the next video, especially considering what Sonic Frontiers did for the Lore of Sonic in regards to these games.

One thing that I was really curious about was the sonic CD-esque cutscene where Amy Rose is using what appeared to be Tarot cards. Like, I played Sonic CD a lot as a kid but I've never seen that scene, and it's never really been mentioned in other Sonic games. So it just has me wondering more about her character.

Really enjoyed this. Would love you doing this with more series too

This is an interesting change from your usual video, and I’m looking forward to the next one. That being said I have a lot to comment on. First, three nitpicks. The Sonic 2 Genesis Sonic-bot is not named Silver Sonic in the games, not even in America. He was ‘Mecha Sonic’ in Japan and that’s what they revert to using today. ‘Robo Sonic’ from Lego would’ve also been acceptable. Second minor nitpick. I’m curious why you used the American boxarts. I don’t know about you but to me the Japanese boxarts are almost always superior, unless it’s a clone of another game like in the case of Sonic 2 for Master System/Game Gear. Third nitpick, but I think getting hung up on Eggman tricking Knuckles again in Triple Trouble was a non-issue. It’s happened plenty of times in Modern after Sonic 3. I don’t think it’s that farfetched. Eggman is good at tricking the gullible yet heroic Knuckles. Bringing in fangames is neat but sorta icky because it makes me think, why not bring in more fangames you like? Sonic and the Fallen Star, Sonic Robo Blast 1 and 2, Sonic Before and After the Sequel, etc. You didn’t mention the other Master System games getting remakes either, and those are a lot more faithful than the pure fanfic that is Sonic 3D in 2D or Triple Trouble. Onto the real meat. I think leaving out games that seemingly have no plot like Waku Waku Sonic Patrol Car or SegaSonic Cosmo Fighter is a mistake because it could've made things really interesting. Just going off of games that have stories is pretty boring in that anyone can do that, but adding those other games would’ve really freshened it up and made it “your take”. The Drift games don’t have serious big stories but they do have forewords from the characters so I think leaving them out was also pretty lame considering they went through the effort to write those. You added Sonic R, which is good, but the story to go off is practically on the same tier. Adding Sonic Drift 2, for example, might end up explaining what Knuckles was doing on South Island for Sonic Blast, and later Sonic the Fighters, which you left out. AS for the games you left out, I take issue with the fact that you changed or filled stuff in to offer changes and alternatives to some, but just disgard others. I like the fix for the GameGear Sonic 2. That one is just kinda hard to piece together. But if you can fix that with headcanon, why not Spinball? You’ve used Sonic Origins, which is good, but Origins also has the Veg-o-Fortress in it. Some version of Spinball happened (I know we’re ignoring larger statements and whatnot but even Ian Flynn says it’s canon now), so providing a fix or retconning the details that don’t line up (SatAM cast, extra Emeralds) that would’ve been neat. I don’t know why you left out Sonic the Fighters either. I presume it’s due to Espio’s presence and the extra Chaos Emerald, but again if you felt both of these were issues, you could’ve changed them or provided fixes. And on that note, I’m not sure why you’re tossing out Knuckles Chaotix. I know you said to keep it an open mind about later, as I suspect it’s about Heroes revitalizing the Chaotix and somewhat decanonizing KC, but I don’t think this was necessary. Knuckles Chaotix is being reintegrated into Classic canon today, down to even the Speedia reforming the characterizations to go more with their new counterparts. So this is another instance where I feel, why not just go with these changes? You took a lot of leeway to make changes for the Sonic 2 conundrum, and even brought up Triple Trouble’s remake because of the cool stuff you thought it added, so I don’t at this point see a good reason to leave out KC and the plethora of cool stuff it added too. And I suppose in relation to Mighty I have to ask why you left out SegaSonic at all, but I assume this'll be brought up in the Mania stuff two videos from now. Lastly. I like the placements for Sonic Chaos, Tails Skypatrol, and Sonic Labyrinth, but you made having 6 Emeralds a sticking point, yet placed Labyrinth, a game with 5 Emeralds on South Island, where you did. Since Labyrinth and Skypatrol ARE canonically simultaneous, I think placing each of them earlier might’ve worked, taking into account what you did with Sonic Chaos. Not sure if you’ll even read all this, but I await what’s to come and plan to dissect those the same way.

As always, great video! Most fans, including the modern writers themselves forget how much the Sonic 2 8bit and Knuckles campaign in 3&K contribute to later events. Especially how Silver Sonic in Sonic 2 8bit act as a prototype for Mecha Sonic, but how that boss acts as a blue print for all of eggman's attempts at creating a cybernetic clone of sonic alla Neo Metal Sonic in heroes. One way that the video really made me appreciate the lore is despite the lack of story, it really stayed consistent with its continuity unlike most 3rd and 4th gen platformers Say for example how in the JP manual for Sonic 1, it states that "Chaos Emeralds are a super substance, giving energy to all living things." So for little instances like how Mecha Sonic harnessing the master emeralds power really shows how the Sega Technical Institute and Sega of Japan really gave the world building and lore a lot of thought. As always, keep up the great work J!

I'm really liking this so far, looking forward to the rest

6:06 thanks for this, actually. I played all of this stuff back in the day. I started with STH 2, but begged my grandparents for the first game afterwards. I was always really confused about "Eggman", but in my defense I wasn't reading any manuals lol. I was like 4. Believe it or not, Sonic 3 was the first game release I was ever hyped for. Well, that and maybe Jurassic Park Rampage Edition, but I never played that back then. I just drooled over it in the store and never convinced anyone to buy it. I may have been hyped for Super Mario World too, because Yoshi. I love dinos, always have.

So far I'm loving this new sub series of videos

Ey bro just wanna say I like your content. Well edited, pleasent voice, no disgusting ads (hello manscape), does a good job staying on topic without weird tangents.

If I may contest something: I think the idea of Tails Adventures taking place before Sonic 1 has a big hole in it when you consider Tails' Sonic 2 backstory. Am I really expected to believe Tails' would be a social pariah on an island he saved from destruction over a perceived physical defect? Tails having ANY solo adventure before Sonic Adventure 1 establishes his intended character development arc presents problems with Tails Adventures and Skypatrol in the timeline, as well. Why would Tails' feel insecure about being in Sonic's shadow after quests like that? Edit: also, while I perfectly understand if you feel it does not fit the timeline (8th Chaos Emerald and all...), are you going to mention Sonic the Fighters? You don't have SegaSomic the Hedgehog on this timeline either, which may present problems when you get to Sonic Mania.

Thanks for this video love this series so far

Another banger vid by j lets go!

With the whole Nack/Fang thing, I like to see it as Nack the Weasel is his real name and Fang the Sniper is something he came up with that sounds more menacing

I really liked this!! Looking forward to more!!

Hi J's Reviews I love this and I hope you have a good day and you are awesome

Yes Triple Trouble 16-bit treated as part of headcanon is the best canon one can hope for

Great breakdown! Thanks for adding details on the development of these games.

I was just thinking about needing to watch a Sonic timeline video, so this comes at the perfect time

As a HUGE Sonic fan..this is genuinely the best Sonic YT video I’ve ever watched 🥹🥲🫡

The editing here is goated

Great video! 👍

I love the effort you put into these Sonic videos, keep up the amazing work!

I liked this and look forward to the other two videos

You earned my sub. Thanks for the lore!

i never expected this!! great

Nice video! Sonic CD is definitely a direct sequel to Sonic The Hedgehog. I mean Sonic 1 and CDs Sonic sprite look the same! And CD feels more like sequel to Sonic 1.

“Everything is Canon” they say. In our minds that is. The same can be said about Mario, Dragon Ball, Zelda, even Mega Man. Even if some non canon material and elements for time skips could come to head-canons. For example my buddy has GT to be his head canon, in spite of Toriyama saying that it’s not canon to his story and sometimes reckoning a few points in his franchise.

I remember the introduction of Knuckles at the beginning of Sonic 3 was so awesome to me as a kid.

Comic Drake also did a Sonic timeline that addresses the crazy time travel shenanigans. I've always been fond of that one

J is gonna have FUN figuring out where the Advance games fit in

8:36 Metal Sonic exists also perhaps Mecha Sonic MK0 (he was called Mecha Sonic in the JPN version) could have been built earlier and Robotnik just got around to using him finally

Yuji naka watching from prison as we speak

This guy J's Reviews just keeps making videos that bring up the exact topics my weird ass frequently thinks about.

J, questions. Heard of Sonic Christmas blast? You'll see Sonic Prime? Gonna discuss Sonic casting ideas? Other Sonic media will be talked in diffrent video? Cover stuff besides the games?

You trickster, thought you were done. Great stuff.

Fantastic video

I'm tired of feeling like the only person that's heard of(and absolutely loved) Sonic chronicles the dark brotherhood.

Got to say I was not expecting you to do something Sonic related again.

Surprised you haven't mentioned Sonic the Fighters, since while its canonicity is debatable due to its wacky plot and the existence of an eighth Chaos Emerald, still does have a story kind of like Sonic R.

And I Also Believe That 8-bit Sonic 2 & Sonic Chaos Set Right Before The 7th Emerald Is Discovered In 16-Bit Sonic 2

Cool video

A NEW VIDEO YESSS

Ooh I remember you showing your sonic timeline in a video a while ago, I was wondering if you were ever going to elaborate on that

Cool idea! I might try to make my own timeline now…

Despite Sonic The Hedgehog being the first Sonic game, it’s actually not the first time Sonic and Eggman have crossed paths. Not sure if there is a game that shows if Sonic and Eggman has crossed paths before though. Actually, Eggman’s animals in robots idea is an idea he had first during Sonic 1 so if we can find a game that has no animals in robots and makes sense to come before Sonic 1 then we could find the first game in the timeline.

I like this, please do more

The Dragon Balls allow you to summon the eternal dragon to make a wish, they don't give you a super form unless that's what you wish for.

I'm watching this while eating McDonalds... How wild is that! I also fondly remember the early 2000s Sonic Happy Meal toys.

Ian Flynn said that Origins is a one big retcon for the classic games. There aren't any Game Gear games between Sonic 1 and Sonic 2, because they meet at West Side and zoomed directly into Sonic 2. After that, every Game Gear game is after 3 and Knuckles. They go by release order (except Blast and Tails' Adventure but i'll get into that) and the only confusion here is that Skypatrol and Labyrinth take place at the same time. Now, this is weird, but the game here is Sonic the Fighters. Sonic fights his friends and the Hooligans to get the Chaos Emeralds. He escapes, etc. Key is that Nack is here and stole an emerald. There are 8 emeralds, because a person joined the tournament with a fake. Spinball is canon, but freedom fighters are not canon. There are 16 emeralds because Eggman mass produced fake emeralds. 3D Blast happens, and not much to say here. R happens after it, and there's a protagonist split. Sonic lives SegaSonic and Blast, while Tails goes his own way to live Tails' Adventure. Pocket Adventure isn't canon, and Modern timeline starts here.

Can't wait for the Adventure and dark age era's of games!

I just finished Sonic Origins and thought about the canonical timeline. I guess we had the same thought process. Thanks J.

Gonna be interesting watching this series after all the lore in Frontiers, especially once you get to Sonic Adventure. Even just seeing the Sonic 3 footage here finally knowing the Ancients built the Sky Sanctuary is very strange feeling

I will now call this era the “spindash era”

Thinking of the Sonic timeline is so fun to me.

0:40 "running for over 30 years" is the most fitting thing to possibly say about this series lmao.

timeline videos would be fun to see. maybe you can do one for the DCAU or the 2003 TMNT series

I’ve always loved that picture of Tails in the thumbnail ❤

Gotta love Sonic

A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one at that

In the Sonic 3 manual, it says Sonic and Tails landed on an unnamed island and laid low for a while and the plot kicks off with Tails building the jewel radar and Sonic finding a ring that told more of the history of the chaos emeralds written on it.

a great idea to finish your "sonic marathon" 👍 cant wait for the next video you didnt mention a few of them but as you said some of them will be mentioned later so i shouldnt have said that but i just wanted to say i think SegaSonicArcade is the first game in the timeline because in that game sonic is RUNNING AWAY from eggman so i think he still didnt have the confidence yet and i think despite being a classic game , Tails Adventure happened between SA-1 and SA-2 because in Tails Adventure he IS a brave hero which would make his character development in SA-1 questionable but with Tails Adventure happening after SA-1 his confidence in SA-2 makes the most Sense and also despite all that sega said i still think SonicCD happened after S3&K other than that i agree with your timeline just dont think i am nitpicking it was just an idea because this video is GREAT a lot of casual channels do a sonic timeline and they are very basic but your video went through details 👍

The Japanese manual of sonic the hedgehog treats Robotnik as a long time menace

15:58 glad to know that Jeb is playing Super Smash Bros Ultimate

Sonic 3D Blast on the Genesis was my very first played Sonic game.

Okay, this is an idea don't really know where to discuss, but I thought I would post it here. In the IDW comics when Robotnik loses his memories, he becomes a nice man who loves making fun things for children and fixing stuff. My reading of this is that Robotnik is like that by nature, and his nasty side developed from what are likely to be traumatic experiences. When you interpret it that way, a lot of the stages make sense. Even his death traps have a carnival like fun side to them. It's as if he can't resist making things fun even after falling to the dark side. Let me know what you think, or suggest a better place to post this.

This was an enjoyable video J and I look forward to the entire trilogy, but I would like to ask, why Sonic Mania wasn’t fit into the timeline too? I know Mania technically came out in 2017 and its ending is a direct prologue to Forces… but I feel it deserves to be in the classic timeline. Especially because Sonic Mania feels like the proper Sonic 4 by taking place far after Sonic 3 (and triple trouble because of Fang the Sniper’s appearance). My head canon is that Mania exists in this timeline and when Classic Sonic comes to Forces, its the “Sonic from the other dimension” I’m unsure since Forces really fucked the timeline after Gens, but its the only theory I have

Man! Kinda wanna do my own one of these now

Tail's Skypatrol was not included on Sonic Mega Collection Plus, it was included on Sonic Gems Collection and I believe it was included on SADX GC

You forgot to mention the other reason sonic 3 was split into two games: Technical limitations. The genesis cart did not have enough room to hold the whole game.

2:55 I’m guessing this script was written before Frontiers released given that game acknowledges Sticks from Sonic Boom and Tangle from the IDW Comics.

Oh boy a 30 minute video detailing Sonic lore? ☕️

If anyone is interested, Sonic Triple Trouble is not the only Sonic Game gear that received a 16 bit remake from Sonic fans. Sonic Chaos is also getting a 16 bit remake, but instead this’d version won’t do in a Sega genesis style, this version will do it in a Sonic Mania style. As If Sonic Chaos 16 bit is considered to be the sequel to Sonic Mania. However the Sonic Chaos 16 bit remake is not complete and I don’t know if J will be interested in playing it once the game is complete. Let me know what you all think of it.

pretty good timeline, i will admit it's missing sonic the fighters as that also had a plot too

I like the timelines but could you format it with things like Knuckle's 3&K story separate from the rest or the games that take place simultaneously in the same box but with a divider between them? Also I hope at the end of this we have a big zoom out of the entire thing.

Cool but I expected NiGHTS and Christmas NiGHTS to be mentioned, I think it’s really the peak of Sonic’s entire series! :)

This is how I see the classic timeline segasonic, 1, cd, gamegear 2, 2, 3&k, knuckles choatix, (maybe 3d blast) mania, and now superstars

4 Horsemen of Sonic Canon: Classic Era at some points, Shadow the Hedgehog game, Sonic Forces, are IDW Comics canon? Tangle was mentioned in Frontiers (one of few spoilers I know) and Sticks from Boom series...