>>538356680
The difference between Heroes references and Flynn references is that Heroes' callbacks are generally more organic and don't mostly amount to name drops, as well as actually referencing things similar to the locales they're visiting. Flynn references shit for the sake of it.

Look at the cutscene where Knuckles thinks of Angel Island just by looking at a random structure. This doesn't even RESEMBLE the area he's thinking of. Like, look at this shit! And Maekawa didn't do retarded lyric dialogue references, Flynn is literally spamming lyric references in Crossworlds like it's IDW and Archie. It's the most unnatural-sounding the game characters have ever been.