Maps in the Sonic Games...

[Barry the Nomad]

Quick side question, while checking out the Soleanna map on the Japanese site I came across this image:

Just who the hell is this guy and what's his purpose? They show him racing Sonic at one point... (?)

[Diogenes]

That's Sonicman (or Sonic Man? I forget). He races Sonic a few times.

...I think that's all there is to it.

[Core]

Core, I do know that you can see the temple of Sandopolis, but you can't actually see a real "desert" there. I probably should've mentioned that, though.

Well, the desert is around the pyramid. It's true that you don't really see it on the picture (you can see it on the title screen though), but Sandopolis's desert cannot be amidst the mountains since you enter the pyramid directly from the desert.

As for Soleanna, I thought I remember seeing a full map showing all the geographical locations of the island, but I can't find it right now. In my opinion, though, its probably near Spogonia, quite likely around the equator. It has a jungle and a desert in the same basic region, but that's not hard to get. What is probably the case is that the mountainous region of Soleanna blocks a lot of the cooler winds from region the desert area and ultimately prevents many green things from growing there. (I have read that deserts are often caused by being blockaded by mountains, and of course being around very hot temperatures.) The jungle is in an area where the trees and plants can actually grow. And of course, very high mountains are generally cold at the top. I don't know if it matters where they are located or not.

Yes, I guess it's possible to have a desert not too far from a jungle. As for the snowy mountain, as I said, I don't think White Acropolis is in Soleanna. The entrance to White Acropolis is located inside some kind of secret base in Soleanna, and there's a teleporter in the middle. When Shadow and Rouge arrive there by the teleporter, Rouge tells Shadow they're in Soleanna and Shadow asks "Why does Eggman's base lead to an odd place like this?". Eggman's base being in White Acropolis where they were before, that means it's not in Soleanna.

P.S. it's Spagonia.

EDIT: I suppose I should mention the above map. I did see it recently (on the Sonic '06 site), but those are actually separate cities, they aren't the same one. Soleanna is known as the "City of Water," but the entire island is also called "Soleanna," as well. Basically, the City of Soleanna (Soleanna City) is the capital of the country of Soleanna. I thought I remembered a larger map than that, though... maybe I was mistaken. Either way, that's merely a filler map on the gamesite. Is there actually a map in the game itself?

I agree that Soleanna is not just a city; it has always seemed obvious to me. As for the maps, I don't think there's a map of the full island in the game. There are maps for the Town Stages but they don't show their positions in relation to each other. The only thing I could find is this weird map that indicates some levels but I don't know what it's worth.

[Barry the Nomad]

YEESH! What a lazy map. They go to the trouble of pointing out Dusty Desert, assuming people can read it, and then mark off locations like "sbdfhjbajgshfujs" and "fieiuwendfngnjf"... lazy.

[Blue Blood]

Aha! Fantastic! A real - even if jibberjabber - map! Makes me happy. Still, the adventure fields weren't as logical as SA and there's 48,835 different types of terrain in one country, but it's all marked there. Love ya, Core!

[JaidynReiman]

Most of that looks like a bunch of jibberish... I can't tell what's going on in it. Its a half-decent map, but you can't really read it well at all. Thanks, anyway, Core.

[Blue Blood]

It's not all jibberish. There are some words:

Seven Colors of crystal gems <jibberish> will unite to flame of Soleanna.

[Joseppi]

It's worth noting that the SA2 Map is essentially an imitation of San Francisco bay area with a few liberties taken. The city matches San Francisco pretty closely, complete with a mock Golden Gate bridge (Radical Highway or whatever it was called) and Alcatraz Prison (Prison Island), the landmass the later levels (Pumpkin Hill etc.) are located on also pretty closely matches Marin country.

For sake of comparison, here's the real life map compared to the SA2 map...

Obviously the SA2 map is a stylized interpratation and as such many parts are exagerated and out of scale, but all the key landmarks (Prison Island etc.) are there and in pretty much the same positions.

I can't believe I never saw that before. I knew the first level of SA2 looked like San Francisco, but not the map. That's pretty cool though. I went there years ago but now I wanna go back just for the sake of feeling like I'm actually in SA2. lol

Soleanna just happens to have EVERY form of landscape? Bullsh*t.

Yeah that's pretty stupid, but it's not the first time they did that in a Sonic game. Angel Island also had every form of landscape. But it never really bothered me...until now.

[Blue Blood]

Angel, Westside and South Island were all meant to be fantasy worlds. The thing about Soleanna is that it was supposed to be realistic.

[JaidynReiman]

Soleanna was intended to be just as realistic as everything else in the series. The only difference is that the -graphics- are more realistic than most other things in the series. That's the only thing that was intended to be more realistic. Sonic and Co. look taller, humans look taller, and the graphics have a more realistic feel to them... but nothing else about the game is even close to "realistic." As such, it makes sense that the geography isn't realistic, either.

[Diogenes]

Angel, Westside and South Island were all meant to be fantasy worlds. The thing about Soleanna is that it was supposed to be realistic.

It's also a video game about a talking hedgehog and his time-traveling magic rocks. Yes, '06 was a lot more realistic than the average Sonic game, but there's no way in hell anyone's going to confuse it with real life. This just seems needlessly picky, to me.

[Blue Blood]

It is picky. But, the whole premise of 06 and the way everything was done, I still think it's too condensed. I don't think that the degree of realism and the story that took a different approach (in more ways than just being darker, but I dunno how to explain it) mesh well with it.

[Phos]

The old games took place in a hybrid fantasy/surreal work with a logical set of rules. Not the same set or rules as our's, but it made sense in a weird sort of way. 06 spliced a random selection of real world themes with a blue hedgehog and some cheap writing and comes off as having no particular direction in mind.