Headscratchers / Sonic Heroes

Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

Headscratchers for Sonic Heroes.

---

• So Team Sonic had three days to do this whole thing and suceeded in doing it in three days, the other teams also follow the same timeline thing (same levels in the same order, the sky (which is the closest you can get to guessing the time of day) is the same in all of them, they get there at about the same time). So, everyone stayed up for three days straight with no problem? Even the six year olds that didn't know the world would be destroyed if they didn't move fast enough?
  • The "three days" thing ended at Rail Canyon/Bullet Station...it seemed as if that's where Eggman was orchestrating his attacks from. Anything after that point occurs after those three days, and is all a matter of stopping Eggman from going any further.
    • The other thing to remember is that this isn't Eggman, this is Metal Sonic pretending to be Eggman. He wants data on Perfect Chaos (which he gets from Froggy and Chocola Chao), as well as Shadow (which he gets by luring Rouge in with the hope of finding Eggman's treasure), and Sonic himself, by inviting Sonic to stop one of Eggman's schemes. It's entirely plausible that there was no superweapon beyond the Egg Albatross, and the deadline was irrelevant, bar a motivating factor to get Sonic to where Metal wanted him.
• If Team Rose's levels are easiest, doesn't that technically make them the strongest team?
  • I assumed it was because the other teams already steamrolled through the levels. Team Rose is just fighting the remnants of the Egg Army.
  • Their team moves slower to compensate, but no, it doesn't really make them the strongest if they're fighting weaker enemies.
  • It actually makes it a bit of fridge brilliance: Team Shadow and Team Sonic had already plowed their way through the majority of the hard enemies while Team Rose, being inherently slower and trying to catch Sonic himself, is going through the remnants of the army.
  • But this is supported in gameplay. Their Team attack is far more useful, Amy's Tornado move is more useful, Cream's solo attack is far stronger, Big's fishing pole is the easiest to use, the Egg Albatross takes less hits to defeat...
    • You kidding? Their moves are pretty much nerfed versions of Team Sonic's moves. Their post-Team Attack invincibility and the lower HP bosses were likely just added to further lower Team Rose's difficulty.
• Shadow can't remember who he is, and is desperate to know. So why doesn't Rouge tell him? She was there. As if his past deeds are the stuff of secrets?
  • I imagine the problem is Shadow remembers even less than he did in Sonic Adventure 2, Rouge probably did inform Shadow of what she knows of him but that only covers a short time span of about maybe a week at most? Rouge could have only been assigned the case to watch Shadow after he was broken out of Prison Island after all. Also Rouge barely knows who "The Ultimate Lifeform" or "Shadow" even is, because she believed The Ultimate Lifeform could have been the Biolizard and even Shadow himself doubted that he might actually be who he thought he was. Put yourself in Shadow's shoes, as much as you can, if you were told a about what you did about a year or so ago, by someone who only knew you for that single event, you would still be wanting answers, and that is probably why Shadow decides to tag along with the rest of Team Dark because he has either been informed, or remembers that Eggman is his creators Grandchild and probably knows more about his past, the parts Rouge doesn't or could never have known, the 50 years ago parts, and whatever else Eggman may have discovered during the events of Sonic Adventure 2.
  • I just assumed trying to tell a person "You're supposed to be dead" would take too much time.
  • While playing Shadow the Hedgehog, this troper would keep asking (sometimes out-loud) himself, "Why doesn't he just ask anyone who was in Sonic Adventure 2? In fact, why doesn't anybody from SA2 just TELL HIM WHAT THEY KNOW?!? Rouge especially!
  • I think we're giving Rouge quite a bit of credit here. I think what Shadow wants to know is what happened before he was put into cryo. He has obviously realized that some of what he remembers about 50 years ago is falsified, or just plain wrong. And Rouge barely has any information about that.
  • Well, in some scenes, Shadow show signs that he at least SOMEWHAT remembers certain things from Sonic Adventure 2, just not any of the events that happened 50 years prior.
  • The game pretty much implies that Rouge thinks that SA2 Shadow is dead and the one she teams up with in this game is actually a robot. Remember that one cutscene after beating Egg Albatross? Shadow finds a robot decoy of himself and Rouge looks at him with concern, almost like she's worried about breaking the news that he isn't the real Shadow. Or what about the final cutscene for Team Dark? Y'know the one where Rouge outright tells Omega that Shadow is a robot. The whole game intentionally has an Ambiguous Ending that makes the player question whether or not Shadow is real or a robot.
• Shadow's amnesia results in him not remembering who he is and, more importantly, who Sonic and the rest of his friends are. HOWEVER, he DOES explicitly remember that Sonic has Super Powers...but not himself? And it can't be him picking up on context clues because nobody spoke specifically of Super Sonic. Additionally, why didn't Sonic stop to remind Shadow of his own super powers? Shadow obviously remembers enough to execute Chaos Control and Sonic could have seriously used the help. Even if Sonic didn't explicitly know Shadow had amnesia, a simple "Shadow, you too!" could have led to them reminding Shadow of his powers.
  • Shadow is astounded by the notion of being nearly in space, clearly not remembering the events of the previous game. But a couple stages and a boss later, when Rouge considers stealing the Chaos Emeralds while Knuckles is away, Shadow responds, "Some things never change, do they?" So... he somehow forgets everything about Sonic Adventure 2 (including going to space, the near genocide of a planet, and any important information about himself) except how jewel-crazed Rouge was? She must have left quite an impression on him.
  • It appeared that it was Knuckles who delivered the "some things never change" line, since Rouge was pretty vague on what "treasure" she was refering to, Shadow wasn't in the scene, and he immediately clues in that Rouge was talking about his treasure and chases after her.
• The Flying characters are essential for flying, because they carry the other team members during flight. The Power characters are presumably the strongest on their team, and thus are useful because they can punch or shoot harder than the others. But how are the speed characters necessary? While in speed formation, the other members of the team follow closely behind the leader, always maintaining the same distance, and never dropping behind, meaning that logically, they can run just as fast as the speed team member. Why then, does each team need a speed character, if everyone else is capable of reaching the same speeds?
  • Maybe the reason the speed characters are needed is because, crazy theory time here, is because they create some kind of slipstream which helps the others keep up with them when they go at top speed. This is especially in the case of Sonic and Shadow, since, you know, they have Super-Speed and all.
  • The opening FMV answers your question. Team Sonic is about to flattened by some boulders, so Sonic grabs Tails and Knuckles' arms and drags them fast enough to avoid them. Non-speed members can't run as fast as the speed members on their own. Presumably it would have been too much trouble to implement an animation of the speed member grabbing his teammates' arms while running in-game.
• Charmy apparently doesn't know who Eggman is, if his "Doctor who?" comment is anything to go by. If this was his first appearance, that might make sense. But he's had to deal with the not-so-good doctor before.
  • It's possible that Knuckles Chaotix has fallen into Continuity Snarl territories. Possibly supported by Mighty's missing poster dating his last appearance as 1993 (Knuckles Chaotix was released in 1995).
  • Team Chaotix as they appear in Sonic Heroes are supposed to be re-imagined soft-reboots of the characters, meaning Knuckles Chaotix never happened and thus they've never met Eggman. The Continuity Snarl comes in with the fact that in the intervening years, Sega has gone back and forth over what exactly they meant by re-imagining and if that means anything or not.
• Why doesn't Team Sonic have a stronger reaction to seeing Shadow alive again? It's a little odd that they just take it in stride so quickly, especially Sonic, since he saw Shadow's apparent death.
• Eggman was locked in a room the whole time, so how did he mail a walkie talkie to Team Chaotix?
• In Team Chaotix's missions were you can't be detected and thus need to use Espio's invisibility, getting caught results in Eggman scolding you and needing to start over. How does he know if you were caught?
  • The same way he knows Team Chaotix has picked up a certain number of chao/keys or destroyed a certain number of capsules/fires. Either that or he hears his robots reacting over the radio (they are his robots after all!)
• Why is Rouge after Eggman's treasure? At the end of SA2, she said she was going to give up treasure hunting.
  • She lied.
    • Definitely a case of "Shouldn't You Stop Stealing?".
  • More like a mild Dub Induced Plothole. In the Japanese original she said that she would stop going after the Master Emerald shards, not that she would stop stealing.
• One of the final missions of Team Chaotix is to "Find the keys to the cell where the client is locked up." Having found them, why does Vector physically break down the cell door instead of just unlocking it?