COVER

It used to be just Knuckles gliding, but now it has Chaotix on it too and it looks much better for it. The title is a little misleading, as the bulk of this story takes place on the Little Planet, but it is still relevant to the story (well, the first four panels of it).

1

The Prologue is a good one because it ties into Knuckles’s solitude. It tells us that, from his point of view, he sent the message to Sonic and that’s it, he has no idea what’s happened. So, effectively, you could read Part 1 and skip right to here, but then you would miss out Amy’s branching storyline. It’s a nifty little back-and-forth trick. At least I think so.

2

Flickie’s Island is home to the Marble Zone, the only Zone at the time with decent ruins to show where the Stone is kept. Now, originally, this was Metal Sonic with a captured Mobian and a few Eggrobos going into the Shrine and the captured guy having the disbelieving lines assigned to the Robots. But I scrapped that and left it as just the Eggrobos. And here is Nack, what a guy, he manages to use the powers of the Time Stone by pure luck. Nack also sounds a little generic here, he later sounded more cocky and evil, a far cry from a treasure hunter, then finally he became the Australian wise-cracker I liked the idea of so much. Chaotix teleport in following the energy signature of the Time Stone. They were hired to take care of Nack, who managed to steal the Time Stone, then they followed him. The teleporter they use is never seen or explained, but somehow they used one.

3

Chaotix here are depicted a lot like their Fleetway counterparts: Charmy (or Charmie as he’s called here because he has three different names; Charmy, Charmie and Charmee, and I didn’t know Charmy was the correct spelling until later when I finally played Knuckles’ Chaotix) is kind of annoying and odd (ironically he later became like that in the games in Sonic Heroes), Espio is not a ninja or a detective per se here. Mighty seems to be the leader (I later put Espio in charge, for some reason I don’t like the idea of Vector being in charge even though he appears to be in Fleetway, Archie and the games) but all of them have very generic dialogue and no real character traits yet. I love the scene with Knux asleep as they argue and with Nack’s wisecracking.

4

Nack takes the smart approach here, considering how gullible Knuckles is, but it doesn’t pay off. He refers to the group as Chaotix but only in passing, I was toying with the idea of them not being officially called Chaotix but I disregarded that. Again, Espio shows his maturity and explains things to Knux, who seems very confused by it all. Nack’s frustration is funny when he shakes the Stone and it pays off, as it suddenly comes to life just in time to whisk them back into the past.

5

Interesting point here is that, originally, this whole part was going to be a Knuckles/Chaotix spin off story, with Chaotix tracking down Nack to Floating Island and all of them being whisked to the Special Zone, in a take on Fleetway’s Chaotix stories. That became this but, originally, the Time Stone was to take them all back into the past of Floating Island and they were going to see the ancient Echidnas creating the Emeralds and fly over to the Little Planet in pursuit of Nack. If that had happened, then a lot of what I later created for the Tales Of Shadow series wouldn’t have happened. But it was all scrapped and whisked aside for this, to later become said series, which is Little Planet of the past, using the Aquatic Ruins Zone as the background because no backgrounds from Sonic CD existed at this point except for Palmtree Panic, which I have firmly placed as the Emerald Heights. I like that teleport in by Metal here.

6

See? SEE?! Why didn’t Mighty’s MUCH STRONGER PUNCH disable Metal but Amy and Cream could with one little hop? It’s best to just accept it for the sake of plot advancement because Metal proves to be just as tough by taking them all out. Espio’s invisibility is pretty good here, later it looks much better, but for my skills at the time it works okay because the inversion of his colours actually blends into the Aquatic Ruins background.

7

Nack joins the dark side, Metal doesn’t seem to mind so, one might think, maybe Nack was under contract by Eggman all along? Sounds very likely considering the many speeches about Nack’s loyalty later on.

OVERALL

Good. The shortest of the Saga, which is a shame, but it tells the story solidly, making up for the quirkiness of Amy/Cream. However, the bond between Knuckles and Chaotix isn’t as well developed as Tails and Ray, who seem so close that you wonder why Tails ever left his buddy behind, but the respect eventually comes into play to justify Knuckles’s trust in them.