How old is Sonic?

[Wraith]

Classic Tails calls him Doctor Robotnik. Doctor Robotnik then replies that nobody calls him that anymore, implying that he was called that in the past. This is topped off by Sonic having a whooole conversation about the future with his younger self and teaches him the homing attack. 

They're literally the past versions of the characters in that game, even if they did decide differently later.

[Sonario]

3 hours ago, Wraith said:

Classic Tails calls him Doctor Robotnik. Doctor Robotnik then replies that nobody calls him that anymore, implying that he was called that in the past. This is topped off by Sonic having a whooole conversation about the future with his younger self and teaches him the homing attack. 

They're literally the past versions of the characters in that game, even if they did decide differently later.

Which is stupid on so many levels. Stuff like this and the "two worlds theory" really goes to show that they have no idea what they're doing when it comes to cohesive and consistent lore and progression. They made a whole GAME about the future and past versions of Sonic colliding and they immediately choose to retcon it away, smh.

[DabigRG]

28 minutes ago, Sonario said:

Which is stupid on so many levels. Stuff like this and the "two worlds theory" really goes to show that they have no idea what they're doing when it comes to cohesive and consistent lore and progression. They made a whole GAME about the future and past versions of Sonic colliding and they immediately choose to retcon it away, smh.

I'm sure that's because Generations was originally a one time thing and then Mania got greenlight before becoming a critical success. So they just said he's from another dimension to get around having to make sense of it, play up the Phantom Ruby's interdimensional capability, and leave the door for more Classic style games.

[Razule]

36 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

I'm sure that's because Generations was originally a one time thing and then Mania got greenlight before becoming a critical success. So they just said he's from another dimension to get around having to make sense of it, play up the Phantom Ruby's interdimensional capability, and leave the door for more Classic style games.

How hard could it have been to just say that Mania and any other future classic games took place after *whatever they consider the last canon classic game* and before Adventure? IT's not like there's a defined amount of time between the classic and modern eras.

[DabigRG]

44 minutes ago, Razule said:

How hard could it have been to just say that Mania and any other future classic games took place after *whatever they consider the last canon classic game* and before Adventure? IT's not like there's a defined amount of time between the classic and modern eras.

Normally, not very. But then Phantom Ruby.

[Pengi]

8 hours ago, Sonic Fan J said:

It is, but the character art they base the model off of by Oshima is like most Sonic reference material marks him as 100cm. 

Which model sheets are you referring to?

The ones seen in Sonic Jam didn't have any definitive heights.

The Classic Sonic cast model sheets in the art assets DVD (circa 2008/2009) did have the Sonic Adventure era heights on them, but this was before Sonic Generations, where we saw the two Sonics side by side for the first time. The art has also been modified from the originals. Compare the original Knuckles to the modified Knuckles, for example.

The stripe on Knuckles' shoe is the biggest tell that these changes were made years after the fact. The yellow stripes on his shoes were curved in all the art from Sonic 3 through to the 1998 Sega calendar. In all the 21st century Classic Knuckles art the stripes are made of straight lines. 

A lot of the "old" art on 21st century Classic Sonic merchandise has been updated from the originals in subtle ways.

[Sonic Fan J]

I was actually referring to this one

But as is clearly obvious the height is not listed and despite my best efforts I can't find a listed height. It's rather frustrating as I knew Sonic was 100cm tall before the Adventure redesign but can't find any evidence. the only evidence I can find is his age in both the technical files http://info.sonicretro.org/Original_Story where he is described as 18 and from his Sonic Jam profile where he is listed as 16

And as Sonic Jam came out in June of 1997 over a year before Adventure was unveiled and he is listed as older than the 15 Modern is it makes things rather weird and convoluted. Regardless though, Sonic was never meant to be presented as a kid and that Generations went with that idea is a retcon. Of course pre-adventure Sonic, or Naka/Oshima Sonic is also not a mute, but again, retcons for reasons unstated. But as Naka and Oshima were still involved and did not treat Adventure Sonic differently from how they originally perceived Sonic I find little reason to believe they would have changed his height. In fact, Naka is on record stating that the redesign in Adventure was to put Sonic's image back where he wanted it to be (http://info.sonicretro.org/images/0/05/CS_S_US.png). Now if you consider that Sonic's creators were not involved with Generations and that Naka still speaks out against Sonic being presented as cute (he complained about Baby Sonic from the movie on his twitter account but I have no links I'm afraid) then the cute kid approach is actually inaccurate to what he was from all angles.

To be fair to this debate however, if one considers the "Modern" Classic Sonic then his age and is entirely up in the air and in the hands of Takashi Iizuka who has already retconned that he is not younger, but from an alternate dimension. In that case we would be safe to presume that "Modern" Classic Sonic is also 15 like Modern or Legacy Sonic. In the most literal of chronological viewpoints though he is younger simply due to his adventures taking place before the Adventure games.

If you want to get really weird with the ages though there is this page from the Japanese manual for CD

In it, Amy's age is listed as 8 yet she is 12 in modern content. Now consider that Sonic is conceived as 18, is listed at 16, yet from when Amy has her age moved up by four years he is made even younger by becoming 15. In light of this figuring out Sonic's actual age is a bit of a mess, but if you want to account for a near four year passage of time for Amy, then likely Sonic would have been 15 in the classic era and 18 now, 19 after generations, and putting him back in line with Naka's vision. It also aligns in a way with his twentieth anniversary being his birthday and celebrated in game. Problem is, it requires a lot of supposition as the evidence available does not allow for definitive extrapolation of data. At this point, you are best off sticking to headcanon, but Sonic's original conceived age and listed age pre-Adventure should be considered when addressing the subject. Sonic was never an adventurer kid, but an adventuring teenager. So if his listed teenage years are listed at 15 at the youngest and 18 at the oldest, and Amy being 8 to 12 along the same path then a 3-4 time gap does make sense until you bring tails into the equation

http://sonic.sega.jp/SonicChannel/character/tails.html

Quote

年齢	8歳

The Sonic Jam bio shows he is 8, and then he is also listed as 8 right now on Sonic Channel. Or in short, for Tails a full year has yet to pass from the Classics even though it have been 4 for Amy and Sonic has grown younger. When you start looking like it like that actually determining a passage of time is pretty much impossible.

So how old is Sonic then? Depends on the Sonic you're talking about really, as he could be anything from an uncounted kid to 18. Though arguably, the kid is only from Generations on, and considering how much smaller Classic Eggman is than Modern, height starts to become a factor that cannot be counted when trying to determine character ages. In a USA court of law, there is too much doubt cast on all available evidence to be useful and thus height must be discarded due to Eggman alone. In short, really you just have to take Iizuka and SEGA at their word, even as their word makes things even more of a mess.

[Pengi]

9 hours ago, Sonic Fan J said:

the only evidence I can find is his age in both the technical files http://info.sonicretro.org/Original_Story where he is described as 18 and from his Sonic Jam profile where he is listed as 16

"Approximate age: 18 (but it's kind of hard to tell)."
The Japanese version of Sonic Jam lists his age as "15-16".

It wasn't until Sonic Adventure that he was given a definitive age, 15. He's been 15 ever since.

Amy, Knuckles, Vector and Espio's ages all changed between the Classic series and the Modern series, some getting older and some getting younger. Charmy is also younger than his original American age (he wasn't given an age in Japan).

[SBR2]

I kinda feel like this probes my earlier point that the characters ages don't really matter all that much. It's like wondering how old Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse are. It's not really that big a factor in who they are.

Hell even Bill Freiberger and Alan Denton have said so on Twitter recently that they never really thought too hard about the characters ages while doing Sonic Boom. 

[DabigRG]

2 hours ago, SBR2 said:

I kinda feel like this probes my earlier point that the characters ages don't really matter all that much. It's like wondering how old Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse are. It's not really that big a factor in who they are.

Hell even Bill Freiberger and Alan Denton have said so on Twitter recently that they never really thought too hard about the characters ages while doing Sonic Boom. 

To be fair, that duo's were almost never noticable enough to debate. At best, you assume at least Mickey is an adult and that's all you need.

 

It's a little different with Sonic characters among other series, where many characters are close in age and some are necessarily a particular demographic. Not to mention how varied yet tight the first 16-20 years tend to be.

[batson]

The characters official ages is one of those things that I've always been fickle about.

And the very simple fact is that, in terms of the games, classic Sonic was said to be 16, but with the modern redesign his age was ret-conned as 15. It's as simple as that.

[Pengi]

11 hours ago, batson said:

The characters official ages is one of those things that I've always been fickle about.

And the very simple fact is that, in terms of the games, classic Sonic was said to be 16, but with the modern redesign his age was ret-conned as 15. It's as simple as that.

It was "15-16" in the Japanese version of Sonic Jam. It was only "16" in the American/European editions.

[AzureLakeSanic]

I used to think Sonic was 10 in the classic canon. I forgot where I saw it but that was my headcanon for a long time.