Alright I’m posting the timeline in two parts or three, but here’s the first chunk of the sonic games for @z0nic and anyone else to reference!
NOTE: This is very rough; assume the dates are US unless otherwise stated; actually playing/watching a runthrough of the games are gonna give you better insight, these are just quick summaries
GUIDE:
** = Maybe don’t stress too hard about putting this one in lol, just had to add it jic
“…”/‘…’ = Quotes pulled straight from Speedia or Wiki, I can link Wiki's semi-complete list here > X
+ = Missing some details, synopsis might be rough lmaoo I’ll try to link websites to start your search so you can get a clearer picture of wth is happening here, my bad :(
{…} = Contains most of my asides and/or fun facts, feel free to skip these
SONIC TIMELINE:
Sonic (‘91) – 7 Zones, 6 Special Stages; Sonic chases down Eggman on South Island to free the flickies! Beat the game with all 6 emeralds and you get the good ending, without all 6, you get the bad ending where Eggman taunts you with the emeralds.
Sonic 2 (‘92) – 11 Zones, 7 Special Stages (Introduced Super Sonic and Tails); Sonic rides his biplane ‘The Tornado’ to West Side Island, meets Tails and together they stop Eggman from collecting all 7 emeralds to power his superweapon, the Death Egg! Without all the emeralds, you get the bad ending where Tails’ is implied to have died.
Sonic CD (SEPT. ‘93) – 7 Rounds, 7 Special Stages (Introduced Amy Rose and Metal Sonic); Implied to be before the events of Sonic 2 (due to ‘a hidden image unlocked through the Sound Test, shows Tails saying, “See you next game,” implying Sonic CD occurs BEFORE Sonic 2’); Sonic stops Eggman from collecting all 7 Time Stones from Little Planet (arrives only one month out of the year), meets Amy, saves her from Metal Sonic, and stops Eggman from creating a Bad Future. ‘In the good ending, Little Planet thanks Sonic with a shower of stars and leaves Never Lake; in the bad ending, Little Planet still leaves, but Robotnik uses the Time Stones to bring it back and the player is urged to replay the game to achieve the good ending.’
Sonic Chaos (OCT. ‘93) – 6 Zones, 6 Special Stages, and considered to be a ‘follow-up’ to Sonic 2; Eggman has one chaos emerald and is looking to collect all 6 for ‘nuclear weapons,’ but in his search has caused South Island to sink. Sonic and Tails stop him.
Sonic Spinball (NOV. ’93) – Considered a Spin-off from SatAM, there are 4 Zones, 4 Bonus Stages; Find all 16, BLUE chaos emeralds! Eggman is trying to take over the volcanic ‘Mt. Mobius’ to turn it into a base, ‘The Veg-O-Fortress.’ Tails is also here, but the Tornado is shot down and Sonic is left to climb up the base ‘pinball style.’ GOAT behavior.
Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine (DEC. ’93) – “The game is set on the planet Mobius, which is inhabited by bean-like creatures. Dr. Robotnik conceives a plan to bring terror to the world by kidnapping the citizens of Beanville and turning them into robot slaves, and eventually creating an army that will help him rid the planet of fun and joy. To achieve this, he creates the "Mean Bean-Steaming Machine" in order to transform the bean-like creatures into robots. Putting his plan into motion, Robotnik sends out his Henchbots to gather all the bean-like creatures and group them together in dark dungeons so they can be sent to the Mean Bean-Steaming Machine. The rest of the game's story revolves around the player character, "Has Bean", and their journey to stop Robotnik's henchmen by breaking into the dungeons and freeing the bean-like creatures.”
+**Sonic Drift (MAR. ’94) – 3 Grand Prixs, 6 Tracks; This was only released in Japan. Technically first racing game? {We aren’t counting the arcade games that are super rare, but I’ll list them here: Sega Arcade Classics [Japan, DEC ‘91], Segasonic Cosmo Fighter [JP, APR. ‘93], Segasonic Arcade [US, SEPT. ‘93], Segasonic Popcorn Shop [JP, APR. ‘93]} And you can drive as Amy! Win!
+Sonic 3 (FEB. ‘94) – 6 Zones, 7 Special Stages, and Right after Sonic 2; Death Egg crashes into the mountains of Angel Island. Eggman meets Knuckles, last echidna of Angel Island and Master Emerald guardian, (Master Emerald keeps the island afloat and is as strong as the 7 chaos emeralds), and convinces him that Sonic is going to steal the Master Emerald. Sonic and Tails show up, Sonic is Super (presumably from the events of Sonic 2), Knuckles punches the emeralds out of him, takes them, and gets out of dodge. They make it to the launch base, ‘where the death egg is under repair,’ fight Knuckles, but then the Death Egg relaunches and they defeat Eggman for it to crash. Again. Launch Base is the final zone from this game. {Probably best if you had your own look at this since it’s important, here you go ;-; (x)}
+& Knuckles (OCT. ‘94) - 8 Zones, 7 Special Stages (but this time you seek out the Super Emeralds to get Hyper Sonic, Hyper Knuckles, and Super Tails); First Zone, after Launch Base zone from Sonic 3, is Flying Battery Zone. Sonic attempts to stop Eggman from relaunching his Death Egg while Knuckles fights off the EggRobo. Ngl it’s hard to quickly give a rundown on it since there’s a good amount of IMPORTANT lore that’ll be a mouse-ka-tool that will help us later :) so I’ll leave this (x)
+** Tails and the Music Maker (OCT. ’94) – Music teaching game. It’s cute, and idk how you’d fit it into the lore but it’d be pretty fkn sick if you did. (15min vid)
Sonic Triple Trouble (NOV. ’94) – 6 Zones, 7 Stages; Sequel to Sonic Chaos, Introduced Nack the Weasel (Fang the Sniper) and has Sonic and Tails stop Eggman’s plans by getting all 6 chaos emeralds (after he loses them from a ‘test misfire’ that send them across the ‘island’ idk which island it doesn’t specify) Knuckles helps Eggman, again. I’m pretty sure Fang is just in it for himself lol, either way he isn’t on Sonic’s side. {Also did you know Fang’s bike is called the Marvelous Queen?? Very cash money of him}
Tails’ Skypatrol (JP, APR. ’95) – 5 Areas(?); Tails comes to a ruined, remote island. Witchcart “uses the island’s railways to travel to all points and trap its inhabitants with enchanted crystal magic.” Tails saves the island from Witchcart and her minions.
+Knuckles Chaotix (APR. ’95) – 6 Attractions, 6 Special Stages, and you’re collecting 6 Chaos Rings this time :), and also Mighty makes an ‘official debut,’ {despite being introduced prior to this game alongside Ray in the arcade game Segasonic the hedgehog [JP, ‘93].} “A mysterious island” comes out of nowhere ig bc of the events of S3&K. Eggman finds out about these Chaos Rings by going through a Giant Ring/Ring Portal that leads you to the special stages in previous sonic games. The six Chaos Rings are described as “crystallized power of the Master Emerald.” Eggman makes his own Dark Rings to power his robots, and takes over this new island. Knuckles shows up to figure out what the connection is between this island and Angel Island, saves Espio from Eggman and Metal Sonic, and then together they work to rescue the others to take down Eggman… {you should read this jic I missed smth}
Tails Adventure (NOV. ’95) – Good luck understanding this one, I’m getting contradicting notes (from the Speedia) saying that “the English language manuals {state that} the story is set after Sonic 2,” and that our boy is on “vacation.” But I’m also reading on the wiki that this shit happened BEFORE he even met Sonic sooo…. Let’s just stick with Chronology ig?? Here’s the link chief.
+Sonic Labyrinth (NOV. ’95) – 4 Zones, 4(?) Bonus Rounds; Eggman tricks Sonic into wearing special shoes that make him go slow as all hell, and they’re called “Speed Down Boots.” Find three keys in each stages to escape the zones within the labyrinth and stop Eggman. (x)
+**Sonic Drift 2 (NOV. ’95) – 3(?) Grand Prixs, and a Final Road; Sonic Drift 1, but ‘bigger’ and ‘better.’ Playable Amy, Knuckles, Fang, and Metal Sonic, let’s fkn gooo.
Sonic The Fighters (JULY ’96) – 10 Arenas; Introduced Honey the Cat, Bean and Bark! Sonic and friends all have a chaos emerald (8 this time lol) and they have a tournament to figure out who will use all 8 emeralds ‘to power a spaceship’ and stop Dr. Robotnik and Metal Sonic ‘from building an evil fortress in space.’
+**Sonic Schoolhouse (OCT. ’96) – FIRST FEMALE VA FOR SONIC LETS FKNGOO. Anyways, Sonic teaches you math, reading, and spelling through fun minigames :) (schoolhouse playthrough)
Sonic Blast (NOV. ‘96) – 5 Zones, 5(?) Bonus Stages; Eggman shatters a chaos emerald into 5 shards ‘with a laser,’ Sonic and Knuckles team up to keep him from collecting the shards and ‘fortifying his island base.’
Sonic 3D Blast (NOV. ’96) – 8(?) Zones, 7 Special Stages; Before you ask, no, unfortunately for me, they are not the same thing. In this one, Sonic has to save these flickies that live on Flickie Island, but they aren’t just any flickies, they’re special bc of their ability to move freely between dimensions “via the Dimensional Rings.” Eggman is the one endangering these flickies bc he’s using them to ‘further his research.’ Pretty much to find chaos emeralds. (x)
*(please add her in I beg of you idk how you’d do this but you’d be a legend I’m trying to figure this out too)* Learning With Sonic (NOV. ’96) – “Dr. Eggman has built Gameworld, a carnival-like tower.” Amy, Sonic, and Tails have to overcome the games to get the chaos emeralds.
Sonic R (NOV. ’97) – 5 Tracks; Sonic and Tails join in on this World Grand Prix when they find out Eggman is participating. Knuckles and Amy join in. Eggman was using the race as a way to distract Sonic while he ‘hunts for the chaos emeralds.’ {Fun fact: If you owned the game and popped it into a cd player, it would play just the music :) pretty neat! One of the best soundtracks of all time and you’re able to listen to it or play the actual game… society has fallen.}
+(?)**Sonic Pocket Adventure (’99) – Pretty much ‘dumbed down vers. of Sonic 2’
Sonic Adventure (SEPT. ’99) – You got this.
