An interesting “side effect” of the canonization of the “classic era” meaning “younger era” is that the classic era now reads as “cute fun times” before the core cast became teenagers/tweens and things got super, super complicated.
Because the characters are “younger,” there’s an air of “little rascal innocence” to everything they do now. The new releases like Mania and Superstars now feel like little throwbacks to the young heroes just learning how to work together and make a difference in the world.
Mighty being Sonic's oldest friend, before even Tails or Amy is hilarious. imagine you lose contact with a friend for like 3 weeks and the next thing you know he's got a girl with a crush chasing him, you lose contact again for like a month, and you briefly think 'Oh, did she kill him?'
no, she didn't, but that friend now has custody of the world's scariest toddler. you've known that baby for 5 minutes and he's already tried to kill 5 people.