You also have the option to select the Wispon weapon you want to equip to your character. Each Wispon weapon has a different ability tied to it. More Wispons will become available as you complete stages and progress the story of the game.
Sonic himself has become one of the biggest mascots in the video game industry, but Sonic games have introduced a wealth of characters. Some of them connect with fans in a major way, while others have virtually disappeared and turned into odd footnotes in the franchise's legacy.
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Updated January 19, 2023, by Ritwik Mitra: Sonic the Hedgehog is one of the most popular video game franchises of all time, even with many people feeling that the recent run of the series has been pretty hit-or-miss. Everyone's favorite hedgehog is a character that most Sonic fans are quite familiar with, with his friends and enemies all being pretty recognizable names as well. However, given the sheer number of entries in this series, it's only a given that certain characters who haven't really made an impact are also present in the series. Here are some characters in Sonic the Hedgehog that even the most hardcore fans struggle to remember.
There are plenty of supporting characters that show up in Sonic games that feel derivative of one another and non-essential. However, Bark the Polar Bear is someone who is actually unique, and a bear alongside Sonic could lead to some fun ideas.
Many of the Sonic the Hedgehog characters that are looked at here are very forgettable, but Honey the Cat is by far the most obscure addition. Sonic the Fighters is already a niche arcade fighter that involves the Sonic franchise, but Honey the Cat is a character that was cut from the game at the last minute and was only known about by dataminers and the modding scene.
Sonic the HedgehogThe blue blur speeds along Central Park West during the 1996 Parade.Years active1993-1997SponsorSega of America, Inc.DesignerManfred BassHeight64 feetWidth26 feetHelium Volume18,900 cubic ft.Sonic the HedgehogThe modern Sonic the Hedgehog balloon returns to the famed holiday spectacle in 2012.Years active2011-2013, 2021SponsorSEGAHeight50 feetLength65 feetWidth37 feetWeight350 lbs.Sonic the Hedgehog is an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog that can run at supersonic speeds (hence his name), and can curl up into a ball as a way of attacking his enemies. In most games, Sonic must race through several unique levels, collecting power-up rings while avoiding obstacles and enemies. In addition to appearing in many video games, the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise has grown into several types of media including video games, comic books, animated television shows and so on and so forth.
The character was first represented in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1993, at the height of the character's initial popularity. Macy's and Sega partnered to create a six-story tall helium balloon of the video game character. The balloon featured Sonic himself speeding down the Parade route with three rows of bodacious blue quills running up and down his back, red-hot sneakers and an attitude bigger than a sonic boom. Upon making his debut, Sonic the Hedgehog was the first-ever video game character to appear in the Parade, and was the only character to hold the title until the debut of the Pikachu balloon in 2001. The balloon also required a record amount of helium to be inflated, at 18,900 cubic feet.
The balloon made its first public appearance at the first-ever Macy's BalloonFest, which welcomed guests to see the trial flights of that year's newest giant character balloons, which included the likes of Beethoven the Dog, Rex from We're Back!, Izzy, and the hedgemiester of Sega, Sonic the Hedgehog. Although the balloon sprang a leak shortly before starting his flight, the error was patched up and the video game superstar filled the sky, much to the delight of his fans.
Since the blue hedgehog's initial release 25 years ago, Sega's mascot has fallen from grace. Inconsistent quality and brand mismanagement have caused Sonic to go from a video game character that was as recognizable (if not more) as Mario to a character that is known more for his appearances in other media.
In 1999, the Sega Dreamcast launched alongside Sonic Adventure. This represented the first time the series was presented in full 3D, which brought even more challenges thanks to Sonic's speed. Series producer and current head of Sonic Team Takashi Iizuka says that while they could recycle many of the assets in a sprite-based title like the Sonic games on Genesis, 3D environments don't allow for that. "Sonic's a really fast character, so we spent all this time making this huge, long, elaborate map, and then we'd run through it in like 10 or 15 seconds," he says.
The way Sonic Team worked around this was to have six distinct characters featured, each with his or her own storyline. The game was a success, garnering high praise from critics and fans, and becoming the highest-selling Dreamcast game of all time. However, the success was short-lived thanks to Sega's troubles establishing the Dreamcast. This raised new issues for the franchise.
With the PlayStation 2 on the horizon and the Dreamcast failing to meet Sega's goals, Sega knew its system was in trouble. While Sonic Team began development of Sonic Adventure 2, the project scope was dramatically altered due to staff downsizing. "Our team of 120 got pared down to 11, sent to America, and told to go make Sonic Adventure 2," Iizuka says. "Part of what we had to resolve was 'How are we going to make the same game with 11 people when we have less than a tenth of the staff on-board?' I was really tasked with trying to make the impossible possible."
A move like that after the release of a well-received game is one of a company in tumult. Handcuffing a flagship franchise in that manner hinted at bigger changes. Despite this, Sonic Team overcame the hurdles to deliver a critically acclaimed release with Sonic Adventure 2. The developers coped with the change in team size by telling two stories rather than six, shifting to feature two teams of characters rather than one story for each featured character.
The inconsistent quality of recent titles led disappointed fans to coin the term "The Sonic Cycle" in 2008 to describe the cycle of hope and eventual disappointment they feel with each passing Sonic entry. The Sonic Cycle consists of three stages. The first stage is the announcement, which fans praise as the "triumphant return" of the glory days. The second stage occurs when Sonic's buddy characters pop up and the gameplay gimmicks start to appear. The third and final stage is when the game releases to poor reviews and a disappointed fanbase before the cycle begins anew with the next game's announcement.
When asked his thoughts about the character redesigns for Sonic Boom, Iizuka, who was not involved with Sonic Boom's development, laughs and puts his face in his hands. "There were a lot of heated discussions and passionate debate between 'This is what we want to do' and 'This isn't right' and trying to make sure that Sega of America had this idea of what they wanted to do," he says.
Despite this fragmentation and turnover, Iizuka asserts that the real problem with Sonic 2006 was the deadlines. "We missed out on that really important time to polish and tune and manipulate the map and make sure that the world really felt good and the gameplay felt good," he says. "Because it didn't have that, it didn't turn out as good as the development team wanted."
When the game was originally developed in Japan, they called the character Eggman. That was the name of the character, but when the game got localized and ported into the Sonic the Hedgehog that we know in the West, they decided to, without confirming with the development team, change his name to Ivo Robotnik or just Robotnik. That's kind of when everyone first learned about the character. Of course, this was without consulting the people who made the game. They just kind of went off and did it. It became super popular and everyone in the West kind of learned about the character as Robotnik. That went on through the "classic" series in the Genesis/Mega Drive era, but as far as the developers are concerned - the ones who made the character and the leaders of what this character is doing next - we really didn't want to have anyone in the universe with two names. To us, he's Eggman, but in the rest of the world he's called Robotnik. We wanted to unify that into one name moving forward. This is something I actually did in the Sonic Adventure series. I made it so that we understand the character's name is Robotnik, but his nickname is Eggman, and as far as everyone is concerned in the world now, we're just going to call him Eggman as his official name.
It's more of like, from our side, when they were making the Sonic Boom series, they wanted to make something that would appeal to kids but also everyone else as well. We wanted to differentiate the Sonic that was on the TV show that was maybe making more jokes and doing things different in the TV show than he did in the video game. One way of making that visual different apparent to people was to either put sports tape on their bodies or scarves - some design changes that they made to the characters to make sure that Sonic Boom Sonic would be different from the Sonic the Hedgehog video game Sonic. It's more of just making sure that the interesting things going on in the show all belong to this type of Sonic that's different from the video game Sonic, but is still Sonic the Hedgehog.
When we were making Sonic 3, one of the purposes behind Knuckles was to create a character that would rival Sonic and be a constant bother to Sonic during the entire game. We had this fundamental need to antagonize Sonic with another character, but we also wanted to have Knuckles be playable and have Knuckles get a revenge on Eggman, so how could we have this character be antagonistic toward Sonic but then also go after Eggman, as well? What made sense for him was to kind of make Knuckles a gullible, easy character that Eggman would take advantage of, therefore he does things against Sonic, but then, just like Sonic, he'll go against Eggman. It's really more to make that gameplay all make sense. 2ff7e9595c
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