Some time ago these CTRs passed:
https://vsbattles.com/threads/sonic-additions-large-starky-galaxy-style.153225/
https://vsbattles.com/threads/espio-intelligence-upgrade.154820/
What's wrong with it? Nothing really, but I want to discuss the canonicity of the game “The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog”
1 What are the arguments for the game being canon?
- It is a Sonic game produced by Sega
- It references previous games
- Common sense
2 Why do I doubt its canon?
*This is not a Sonic Team title, but we strongly believe in the power of headcanon!
A headcanon is anything that is yet to be confirmed or deconfirmed, It could be canon in the future, but without official confirmation, considering it canon is literally just a headcanon.
Counterarguments
-They mention locations from previous games, so it's canon?
…It does not work like this
If in my Total Drama fanfic (it exists, if for some strange reason you want to read it, ask about it, but it is in Spanish) I recognize past events, is my fanfic canon?
No
It's the other way around, another game should take into account the existence of TMoStH, the only thing it indicates now is that it is an official Sonic product.
Don't even dare mention that it's a fanfic, that's not the point of my argument.
-Everything is canon
Let's remember that it was said based on a crossover image of PuyoPuyoTetris 2
The phrase is not “everything that is made of sonic is canon”, it was a joke, and if you want to look for a meaning, it would be “Don't worry, what you think is canon is canon”
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..
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It's not really certain that it is not canon, but there are reasons to doubt that it is, and it is safer to leave it in a corner waiting for its canonicity to be proven, than to say that it automatically is.
(Now, if there are references or something that confirms the canonicity of the game in the comics, please let me know, I'm very lost on that side [I don't think a cameo is enough, remember that Stick is currently canon, but we do not take Sonic Boom within it for obvious reasons, and let's not forget that both
Sally Acorn and Bunnie D'Coolette appear in "Sonic Forces: Looming Shadow" as a cameo, but they are obviously not canonical characters, and
Amy's car from All Star Transformers appears in an IDW comic but the game is not considered canon)
Also remember that the canon changes constantly:
- Sonic Sonic Labyrinth and Sonic Spinball were initially non-canon, but they changed it
- Sonic the Hedgehog 4 was changed from the classic era to the modern era and there are a lot of implications that this was what happened after Sonic CD (putting CD at the end of all 4 games), but actually CD was put before Sonic 2, causing it to be separated by Sonic 2, 3, and Mania (and technically all the other classic games that were canonized, but here it's put before a lot of classic stuff
...