In Part 2, Crazy Penguin analyzes the rest of the games.
Here's (the incredibley late) part 2, and this time I'll be looking at the rest of the Sonic games and whether they can be considered canon or not. Let's look at the list.
Sonic the Hedgehog (8 bit)
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (8 bit)
SegaSonic the Hedgehog
Sonic & Tails
Sonic Spinball
Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
Sonic Drift
Sonic Gameworld
Tails and the Music Maker
Sonic & Tails 2
Sonic Drift 2
Chaotix
Tails' Skypatrol
Tails Adventures
Sonic Labyrinth
Sonic the Fighters
Sonic 3D
G Sonic
Sonic's Schoolhouse
Sonic R
Sonic Pocket Adventure
Sonic Shuffle
Sonic Advance
Sonic Advance 2
To start off with let's shorten the list by getting rid of the games that cannot possibly be/are incredibly unlikely of being canon.
Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
Based on DIC's Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon.
Sonic Spinball
Based on early ideas for DIC's Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon.
Sonic Gameworld
Edutainment game with no real story.
Tails and the Music Maker
Edutainment game with no real story.
Sonic's Schoolhouse
Edutainment game with no real story.
Sonic the Hedgehog (8 bit)
Plot is virtually identical to the 16 bit version.
It's sequels don't fit.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Would have to go after Sonic 3 & Knuckles to work in any way.
Only 6 Chaos Emeralds.
It's sequels don't fit.
Sonic & Tails
The South Island sinking plot point doesn't fit.
Only 6 Chaos Emeralds.
It's sequel doesn't fit.
Sonic & Tails 2
Sonic has never seen Knuckles before.
Only 6 Chaos Emeralds.
G Sonic
Chaos Emeralds on South Island.
Knuckles on South Island.
The story is quite obviously a continuation of the main Game Gear Sonic series.
Sonic Drift
It's sequel doesn't fit.
Not much of a story to it anyway.
Sonic Drift 2
Has the Death Egg in it.
Sonic Labyrinth
Chaos Emeralds on South Island.
Again, quite obviously made to fit in with the other Game Gear games.
Tails Adventures
Set before Tails met Sonic. Again, only 6 Chaos Emeralds and it also sees an appearance of the Sea Tail, which first appeared in Sonic & Tails 2 (infact, that's the ONLY other game it's appeared in).
Now let's have a look at the remaining games.
SegaSonic the Hedgehog
Chaotix
Tails' Skypatrol
Sonic the Fighters
Sonic 3D
Sonic R
Sonic Pocket Adventure
Sonic Shuffle
Sonic Advance
Sonic Advance 2
SegaSonic the Hedgehog
Can fit in anywhere between Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 perfectly.
Sonic Team involvement: None known of.
Chaotix
This game stars Knuckles the Echidna and also sees the return of SegaSonic's Mighty the Armadillo (amongst other characters, including droppped Sonic 1 character, Vector). The story was written to tie in directly with the storyline of the main series unlike all of the other Sonic games that weren't mentioned in Part 1 of this editorial series. The story relates to Angel Island's fall during Sonic 3 and the Super Rings etc. It is also the only (non-portable) proper platform game that wasn't mentioned in Part 1 of this editorial series. Recently Sonic Team's latest main series Sonic game was revealed, “Sonic Heroes” and it features Espio, Charmy and Vector in “Team Chaotix” the very fact that the characters are being used and that this game's title is being directly referenced suggests that the game is canon.
Sonic Team involvement: None really. Naoto Ohshima is credited for “Original Character Concept” and there are a few sound guys. Out of all of the Sonic games with no Sonic Team involvement I think that this holds the most weight for being canon.
Tails' Skypatrol
Fits perfectly. Sonic Team unvolvement: None. The game wasn't made by any division of Sega, but by SIMS & JSH.
Sonic the Fighters
Featuring Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Espio, Fang, Eggman, Metal Sonic and newcomers Bark and Bean. It also features the first appearance of Amy's Piko Piko Hammer which would go on to appear in Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 amongst other games. The Piko Piko Hammer is probably the biggest evidence to suggest that this might be part of the main continuity, but one should also not forget Tails' workshop, whilst not identical to the one later seen in Sonic Adventure I would say that the workshop seen in SA is almost definitely based on the one seen in Fighters and the intention may have been for them to be one and the same. The one thing that goes against this game being canon is the fact that there are 8 Chaos Emeralds, but the continuity even in the main series is quite loose, so this can easily be forgiven by pretending that there were 7.
Sonic Team involvement: An AM2 programmer worked Sonic into the code of their newly finished game, Fighting Vipers. Yu Suzuki saw this ans liked the idea, so he asked Yuji Naka for approval of making a Sonic fighting game. Naka was enthusiastic about the idea and gave it the go-ahead. The game was made by AM2 and gives thanks to Sonic Team in the credits.
Sonic 3D
Fits perfectly.
Sonic Team involvement: Originally a Sonic Team idea, and had quite a few Sonic Team staff working with the third party Traveller's Tales, who did most of the development work. Two pieces of music were even reused for Sonic Adventure.
Sonic R
Fits perfectly.
Sonic Team involvement: A Sonic Team idea, however they couldn't develop it because they were busy with other projects, so they left the development to Traveller's Tales again. Sonic Team produced Sonic R. This was also the first Sonic game where Yuji Uekawa acted as character designer (he was later the character designer on Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2).
Sonic Pocket Adventure
Just your usual Sonic plot. Can only really work if it's set before Sonic Adventure, because of the appearance of the original Tornado and the presence of the Chaos Emeralds (Tails keeps the same Emerald from Sonic Adventure to Sonic Adventure 2, so any game using the Chaos Emeralds simply cannot logically fit between).
Sonic Team involvement: Yuji Naka supervised the game.
Sonic Shuffle
Fits perfectly.
Sonic Team involvement: Yuji Uekawa and a few others (not Naka) supervised.
Sonic Advance
Probably the trickiest of the lot. It would fit perfectly if it weren't for the fact that the original Tornado is there (it was destroyed in Sonic Adventure) and that the moon is complete (about half of it was destroyed in Sonic Adventure 2). However Tails did repair the original Tornado in Sonic Shuffle, should you personally consider that the be canon material. The issue about the moon remains however. It seems that Sonic Advance 2 is canon so it would be odd for this game not to be, especially with the references to this game in Sonic Advance 2 (Egg Hammer Tank II, XX Zone and some reused enemies). Some people theorise that this game takes place before Sonic Adventure, however it was made significantly later.
Sonic Team involvement: A Sonic Team/Dimps collaborration, with Sonic Team produced character designs and art etc. whilst Dimps did most of the development work and making the actual game itself.
Sonic Advance 2
This game marks the first appearance of and Sonic's first meeting with Cream the Rabbit, who makes cameo appearances in Sonic Adventure DX and is a playable character on the upcoming Sonic Heroes. This heavily suggests that this game is canon.
Sonic Team involvement: About the same as Sonic Advance.
Well that wraps that up for now, I'll be sure to be back with more once more Sonic games are released, in particular I'd like to see how/if Sonic Heroes relates it's story to Chaotix and Sonic Advance 2 and what it has going on with the moon.
As for Sonic Pinball Party, I've yet to experience the story fully, but from what I've seen it has as much significance to the Sonic storyline as the Sonic Cafe games do.
~Crazy Penguin~