In 2023, there was a brief debate regarding the game's canonicity to the overall Sonic franchise. Ian Flynn initially stated that the game was non-canon, despite the fact that Sonic acknowledged the game's events in a Sonic Channel interview. However, this would later be revealed to be due to a change in the game's canonicity after he had been told it was non-canon. Flynn later firmly stated that the game had resumed being a canon entry in the series.

In the game's data, found at the offset 0x32E of it's ROM are the strings "MINATO", referencing Minato Giken, the developer company that worked on the game.