Sonic the Hedgehog is no stranger to animated shows. He has had multiple series dedicated to telling stories of him and his friends foiling Eggman’s plans since the 90s. Whether or not they are directly connected to the games tends to vary. With that being said, is Sonic Prime canon to the video games?
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Is Sonic Prime in the same continuity as the Sonic the Hedgehog video games?
Sonic Prime could loosely be considered canon to the mainline series of games. While it does not follow any of the hedgehog’s past adventures directly, many of the same characters that you know from the games are here, which is not too common with Sonic cartoons. There often are new characters created in major roles to help Sonic like Sally Acorn, Sticks, and his siblings Sonia and Manic. These additional characters hardly ever appear in official Sonic games, but the Sonic Prime cast fully focuses on the main group of characters you know from the games, albeit adding Rouge to the main group of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy.
While you could draw a line between Sonic Prime and the games based on the usage of characters, there is an odd inclusion of Green Hill Zone. While the initial level in the original game is iconic, Sonic and his friends do not call this area home in the games. In fact, nowadays, they don’t even recognize it fully, just mentioning that it looks familiar in Sonic Generations. In the pilot of Sonic Prime, Sonic says this is home and there is no mention of Knuckles’ usual home on Angel Island.
If you want to squint, you could definitely argue that Sonic Prime is a canon experience to the games, but we would be very surprised to see it ever get mentioned in a future release. It has many game elements from the past in there, and it could be the closest any of his animated shows have gotten to the mainline series, even with a noticeable disconnect in certain areas.
