Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-24252369-20131208082333/@comment-24252369-20131223205947

Yes I agree with the modern appearances meaning that Sonic 4 would have taken place a while after Sonic and Knuckles. I'm playing Sonic 4 right now so I'm going to find out at some point what happens wth Metal Sonic in the end eventually.

I don't think it really matters though, now that I think about it, because the fan-fiction game series I'm working on takes place years after the most recent Sonic game events. So Metal Sonic could appear again in a real future game, so it doesn't really make a difference how he was defeated last time.