The "Other Sonic Knowledge & Discoveries" Topic

[FriendBot]

I remember the hysteria about the facemask, it was both hilarious and sad.

[Your Vest Friend]

Warning: This post is visual reference-heavy. 

Hey, remember when last month I did a research thing into identifying the identity of "Touma" (aka Shinichi Higashi)? Remember how I wondered if the Battle Kukku Empire were his as well because he worked on that game? Well, I was just looking up a picture of the original Fang artwork for a completely unrelated point, and it's then that I noticed something.

It's very distinct, and distinctly...off from the Sonic style. Scrawny limbs even for the noodle limb standard, Exaggerated features throughout, very angular shapes in the face, that unique shading, they all seem very much like Higashi's hallmarks and not someone else reinterpreting his concepts. 

Now, for some reason, this pondered me back to the thing I did last month, so I got curious and checked out the Battle Kukku Empire lot to compare.

Great Battle Kukku XV and Speedy certainly seem to share those exaggerated traits, especially Kukku XV. A lot of angular shapes and exaggerated features, that same shading style and scrawny limbs, even the same number of fingers, they fit the bill quite well. Dr. Fukurokov isn't as exaggerated (although those arms are something else), although he still fits that style. So it honestly seems to me that The Battle Kukku Empire are Higashi's creations as well as they fit all his hallmarks. 

But then again...Nobuhiko Honda also worked on both Triple Trouble and Tails Adventure, who says that isn't his work (even if we know Higashi designed Fang)? Well, for that, we can look at his other major art contribution; Sonic Heroes. 

Honda created a character for Heroes in the form of E123 Omega (he is solely credited for player designer). However, not only does he not have most of the stylings from the above designs, the two elements that could be seen as similar to them (the lower arm things being so exaggerated, the strange flat feet of Fukurokov) can be seen perfectly clear when we compare Omega to his older brothers, E102 Gamma...

...And Zero aka E100 Alpha...

Both of these characters were designed by Uekawa, so they're completely independent from both Higashi and Honda. Most likely scenario is that Honda used the previous E100s designs as a basis for Omega, and tweaked things to fit in the niche of a Power type character. 

It should also be noted that Honda's organic designs do not bear resemblance to either Fang or the Battle Kukku Empire in traits. This is especially noticeable when comparing them to his redesign of Charmy Bee. 

His original interpretation is fairly stocky if anything, and places that could easily be exaggerated aren't (best example being the abdomen). And while his Sonic Channel art shows him with an exaggerated stinger, this was solely Uekawa's interpretation as that wasn't a big thing in Honda's conceptualisation of the redesign (as seen here's, Charmy's stinger is entirely missing!), and Uekawa himself has toned it down in future Sonic Channel artwork.  

Note that Neo Metal Sonic, Metal Overlord etc don't count for Honda, as they were designed by Hoshino instead (and he is credited as Enemy Designer). 

Okay, so if Higashi designed Fang and the Battle Kukku, and Honda was an artist in both, what did Honda do? Well, in Tails Adventure, he was just credited as "artist" (and just staff in Triple Trouble), and that's a very nebulous concept. Indeed, if you look at his credit history, he's been in quite a few different artist positions. 

• Graphic Artist in Super Columns
• Graphics in Sonic Pocket Adventure
• Lead Field Artist in Sonic Adventure
• Field Artist and Enemy Character Designer in Sonic Adventure 2
• Player Designer, Event Scene Artist and CG Movie Art Support in Sonic Heroes
• Character Designer and Weapon Artist in Shadow the Hedgehog (So you have him to thank for the Omochao Gun)
• Environment Artist in Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games

He was a versatile guy while he was with SEGA, so there's no doubt he could have done any number of artist duties in Triple Trouble and Tails Adventure, not strictly character design (Higashi was mostly character design and character modelling, which makes sense given his specialism). There's even some evidence of his influence in the games themselves. 

Compared to Higashi's art, the icon for Fang in Tails Adventure seems far less exaggerated and more "cute", which suggests that this wasn't from Higashi himself, and more likely Honda's sprite work. 

So yeah, TL;DR I reckon Higashi design the Battle Kukku Empire as well as Fang, and Honda was all over the place. 

[Your Vest Friend]

Fuck, I need a method to prevent being bored on a Sunday, I just keep making mini research projects.

Mighty and the Mystery of the Gale Racer Cameo

So I was doing some random video hopping, and on one of them I was reminded of the cameo that Mighty and Ray had in Gale Racer. For those that don't know, Gale Racer was the 1994 Saturn port of 1990's Rad Mobile (the first time we officially saw Sonic in a game). Now, cameos in other games by the same staff or company are nothing new. Bean and Bark got to appear in AM2's Fighters Megamix and Virtua Striker 2, all of the StF cast were collectable figurines in Shenmue and even above you can see Fang cameo in another of Aspect/Higashi's Sonic titles, Tails Adventure. 

Except, this cameo is odd; Gale Racer was developed by AM2, not AM3, so they don't share a single staff member in common with each other. What gives? 

As a reminder, Mighty and Ray were created by Manabu Kusunoki while working with AM3 (although he wasn't strictly limited to AM3). Mighty was eventually used again for Chaotix after the cameo in Gale Racer. Kusunoki never touched this porting project. 

Mighty and Ray weren't the only ones who cameo'd in Gale Racer though. In fact, there was a whole host of Sonic characters, listed in order of how many points are required to unlock them;

Sonic, Tails, Metal Sonic, Mighty, Eggman, Mecha Sonic (Sonic 2), Ray, Amy Rose, Mecha Sonic (Sonic 3), Knuckles, Super Sonic.

Man, that is quite the array of characters, pretty much all the major ones in the franchise at that point (except ones developed by American STI because fuck Spinball). So they must have had a good knowledge of Sonic as a whole since this was still in the era where Sonic Team was fractured (it wouldn't last much longer). But it's weird how Mecha Sonic (the Sonic 3 one) and Knuckles are ranked so highly against the others who were mixed about, why would anyone in this team have such a bias for Sonic 3?

Quote

 Graphic Designer: Takashi Thomas Yuda

...Well, hello there Mr Yuda. Yes, Knuckles' creator was a graphic designer for Gale Racer, and it...kinda shows. 

Not just this, but the timeline also fits remarkably well; Yuda would have at least known Yamaguchi and Sonic 2 from being at the same developing studio that made it (even if he didn't work on Sonic 2 himself), and Ohshima, Hoshino and Kusunoki would have all become co-workers when he was put on Chaotix (with Sonic 3&K finishing the design phase well before February 1994, as the problem at that point was having to split the game), so that would be an ample time to learn about all these characters not developed by STI. Furthermore, while Ohshima and Hoshino had to be taken off Chaotix to work on NiGHTS (and even Kusunoki has special thanks on it), Yuda had nothing to do with that game. While NiGHTS was released February 1995, Gale Racer was released December 1994, so it seems he was moved to that project instead of with the other two designers (while Kusonoki himself got moved onto Panzer Dragoon (March 1995), so not a bad deal there either, just absent of Sonic cameos). 

As to why they didn't cameo the other Chaotix when he'd got a credit on that and Rad Mobile was no stranger to early bird cameos? Given that all of the projects they moved onto were released before Chaotix, it seems they were moved on pretty early, so there's a good chance Yuda never saw Vector, Espio and Charmy put into game form by the time he was on Gale Racer, while those characters that did cameo already had a game under the belt to reference from. At the very least, it strongly suggests he didn't create Espio. And of course Higashi was never involved with Chaotix, so he's not a cameo in Gale Racer either. 

[Your Vest Friend]

So yeah, having seen this Tumblr post about bonus cursors in Sonic Heroes, I decided to firk out my own copy of the game, and do some file pulling for myself. These are .ANIs converted to .GIFs, which for some reason slowed down most of the animations.

While some are clearly based on pre-existing sprites, it is a little bit more extensive than a slap-up job. Rouge, while based on her Battle flying sprite, clearly has her Heroes outfit on instead and Tails appears to be a completely new sprite for some reason, as it isn't close to either his Advance or Battle sprites. And of course there are five totally original sprites because pre-existing sprites just...didn't exist. It's a cool little bonus really. 

Also, if you're wondering how they could have sprites of Battle with Heroes, remember that while Battle and console Heroes were released pretty much simultaneously, the PC port of Heroes came out nearly a year later. 

[AstroSeedP]

In 2009, the now defunct GameTap service produced a documentary for Sonic The Hedgehog that was very informative and included many interviews with various key people. I'm sure many of you have seen this before, however the 4-part video is no longer available outside of France due to YouTube/Metaboli restrictions.

This is a shame as the videos were really well made and are a big miss for any Sonic fan who didn't get a chance to see it. The only things that are available from it are the first part on various sites, and a Castilian fan-dub of it on YouTube.

So, I took it upon myself to upload my copy so it'll be easy available for anyone wishing to see/re-watch it.

I'm planning on adding English and Spanish subtitles at a later date for convenience.

[Big Panda]

Recently I've been binge watching watching AoStH via my DVD boxset, and I only recently noticed something about said set that suddenly put something from years before into perspective.

As many may remember, Adventures was rerun in the UK on the channel Pop in the mid-2000's. It had actually managed to become one of its most popular shows at the time, so much so that they ran a marathon one bank holiday monday, where they also ran a competition where viewers were in for the chance of winning a prize if they answered a question correctly about the episode they'd just watched.

The one question that always stuck out to me from that marathon was the one for "So Long Sucker"...because the question was literally unanswerable. It asked "What was the name of Tails new pet", and it listed three possible names, and not one of them was the correct answer "Goopster".

Flash-forward to now, and after all this time, I now know what the deal with that question was: whoever was putting these questions together were basing them on the official (usually inaccurate) episode descriptions, the very ones present in my boxset! The description for the aformentioned episode incorrectly calls Goopster "Walter". My memory is hazy, but that sounded vaguely like one of the answers for that question.

The episode descriptions in this boxset all have a lot of inaccuracies and outright incorrect information. The blurp for "Tails in Charge", for example, claims to be about Tails being left to fend for himself while Sonic goes to save a village or something, instead of the "Stopper-Zapper" plot.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

19 hours ago, Ernest-Panda said:

Recently I've been binge watching watching AoStH via my DVD boxset, and I only recently noticed something about said set that suddenly put something from years before into perspective.

As many may remember, Adventures was rerun in the UK on the channel Pop in the mid-2000's. It had actually managed to become one of it's most popular shows at the time, so much so that they ran a marathon one bank holiday monday, where they also ran a competition where viewers were in for the chance of winning a prize if they answered a question correctly about the episode they'd just watched.

The one question that always stuck out to me from that marathon was the one for "So Long Sucker"...because the question was literally unanswerable. It asked "What was the name of Tails new pet", and it listed three possible names, and not one of them was the correct answer "Goopster".

Flash-forward to now, and after all this time, I now know what the deal with that question was: whoever was putting these questions together were basing them on the official (usually inaccurate) episode descriptions, the very ones present in my boxset! The description for the aformentioned episode incorrectly calls Goopster "Walter". My memory is hazy, but that sounded vaguely like one of the answers for that question.

The episode descriptions in this boxset all have a lot of inaccuracies and outright incorrect information. The blurp for "Tails in Charge", for example, claims to be about Tails being left to fend for himself while Sonic goes to save a village or something, instead of the "Stopper-Zapper" plot.

Sounds like someone should've actually watched the episode before making a quiz question about it...

[Your Vest Friend]

On the back of the species discussion going on, I decided to translate most of Espio's moves from the Fighters video. Most of it was standard stuff, but there were a couple of interesting points.

-The throw name actually references the act of table flipping. Not sure if that's consistent with the other characters.

-The tornado attacks are actually called "Espio spin". Likewise, his special is called "Espio warp". What a narcissist. 

[AstroSeedP]

So I probably should have mentioned it before but I actually own a Sonic and the Secret Rings DVD:

Spoiler

It's nothing special though, seems to be one of those DVD's they used to play at video game retail stores.
But, it's still something cool to have.

If you're wondering what's on it, it's an extended version of the promo that was at the end of the trail version of the game.

 

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

Well, here's something the Sonic Stadium main site posted about a week ago - the first prototype footage of Sonic R.

No especially groundbreaking revelations to be found, but still an interesting watch, especially for those like me who have a special place in their heart for the game. I think the prototype bridge texture looks a bit better than the final.

[Your Vest Friend]

A month later and that channel is still producing gold nugget after gold nugget of interesting history. For this post, I'm focusing on the latest one made about the level editing mode in Sonic 3D Blast (MD). 

What I find most interesting about this is that pretty much every Badnik in the game is seen scrolled at some point in his demonstration (bar the "Badniks" in Puppet Panic Zone). 

Using Sonic Retro's Badnik list as reference, these are the names for them in the level editing mode;

GG Badnik 1 - Scouter

GG Badnik 2 - Hunter

GG Badnik 3 - Snake (for some reason there's an A and B version) 

RR Badnik 1 - Crock

RR Badnik 2 - Bee

SS Badnik 1 - Dragfly

SS Badnik 2 - Spider

SS Badnik 4 - Shell

SS Badnik 4 - Fish (it's actually with the Gene Gadget Badniks in the mode, suggesting it was made for that level then put in Spring Stadium as well later)

DD Badnik 1 - Snowman (the Badnik form is Snowman 1, the stationary mine form is Snowman 2)

DD Badnik 2 - Bunny

DD Badnik 3 - Pengo (Which itself is possibly a reference to an old arcade game made by SEGA)

VV Badnik 1 - Bug

VV Badnik 2 - Firefly

VV Badnik 3 - Bat

VV Badnik 4 - Scorpy

(Other) GG Badnik 1 - Octopus

(Other) GG Badnik 2 - Mouse

As you may notice...these names are pretty simple compared to standard Badnik naming. However, given that their names were never used in promo material or anything, I doubt they got names beyond this. 

[Multikaris]

On 10/10/2017 at 2:20 PM, VEDJ-F said:

A month later and that channel is still producing gold nugget after gold nugget of interesting history. For this post, I'm focusing on the latest one made about the level editing mode in Sonic 3D Blast (MD). 

What I find most interesting about this is that pretty much every Badnik in the game is seen scrolled at some point in his demonstration (bar the "Badniks" in Puppet Panic Zone). 

Using Sonic Retro's Badnik list as reference, these are the names for them in the level editing mode;

GG Badnik 1 - Scouter

GG Badnik 2 - Hunter

GG Badnik 3 - Snake (for some reason there's an A and B version) 

RR Badnik 1 - Crock

RR Badnik 2 - Bee

SS Badnik 1 - Dragfly

SS Badnik 2 - Spider

SS Badnik 3 - Shell

SS Badnik 4 - Fish (it's actually with the Gene Gadget Badniks in the mode, suggesting it was made for that level then put in Spring Stadium as well later)

DD Badnik 1 - Snowman (the Badnik form is Snowman 1, the stationary mine form is Snowman 2)

DD Badnik 2 - Bunny

DD Badnik 3 - Pengo (Which itself is possibly a reference to an old arcade game made by SEGA)

VV Badnik 1 - Bug

VV Badnik 2 - Firefly

VV Badnik 3 - Bat

VV Badnik 4 - Scorpy

(Other) GG Badnik 1 - Octopus

(Other) GG Badnik 2 - Mouse

As you may notice...these names are pretty simple compared to standard Badnik naming. However, given that their names were never used in promo material or anything, I doubt they got names beyond this. 

Now I wonder what the names of the Panic Puppet badniks must be? And a lot of the Advance names were pretty simple as well. If only we had Fire and Ice Badnik names...

 

edit: Lost World’s Badnik names were simple as well. (Many were in Japanese) Not so much with the Rivals series and Rush Adventure (Rush 1 used Egg Pawns and their kin, which the Rivals series relied on quite a bit as well.)

[Zippo]

Cybershell sheds light on some incredibly obscure things I didn't know even existed until now.

[Your Vest Friend]

Here's some knowledge I just made a status about: There are no socks here.

Interesting, and it makes the designs a lot more consistent with that knowledge too. 

[Your Vest Friend]

Socks not being socks not enough? How about an actual truth bomb?

This video was a German promo vid made in 1992 (as seen by the title, and the credits to the documentary). There's a lot about SEGA's general history, but the most relevant thing for us here is the section between 4:21 and about 4:36. It focuses on a Research and Development team (Sega Software R&D Dept. 8 eventually becoming Sonic Team, so that shows you how early this was done), and you can see the following concepts;

-Concept art of Nikki (yes, that Nikki from the Manga). He has the glasses as always, but shoes more like Amy and a bowtie that reminds me of the pre-Sonic rabbit concept.

-Concept art of Amy Rose, with ever so slightly different clothes (it's a dress instead of top and skirt, but it's hard to tell). 

-Concept art of Anita/Tania, Sonic's little sister in the Manga.

-Concept art of Sonic's parents from the Manga. Brenda seems rather different from her manga counterpart, not so much Paulie. 

-Other concept art of the female hedgehogs, including Tania with just gloves, neckbow and skates and what appears to be a topless Amy (not like that).

-Concept art of Vector rocking a Blues Brothers-esque combo of hat, shades and tie. This concept art looks so similar to his Chaotix self that I'm fully convinced he was developed fully way before KC and he was just nabbed. 

-Concept art of Anton's brother Matt. We didn't have a Sonic-esque look for him before, so that's nice to see.

-Concept art of Anton Verruca, who is much longer than the Manga made him out to be. His t-shirt is also not a t-shirt, it's...I don't know. 

-Concept art of Anton's parents, which we never saw in the Manga.

-Concept art of Ray the Flying Squirrel. No, seriously, that's Ray. The long nose, black fur and backing on the figure next to him might even be an early Mighty. 

-Concept art of several stages and level mechanics. 

-The Sonic mannequin.

-Some Sonic art. One we've seen a million times, one not so familiar.

-A sprite test for Sonic's regular run animation.

This does raise some questions of its own...like, what were aiming for? It looks like even back here Sonic Team were building ideas for a bigger narrative than what ended up existing, and then there's the whole timeline of Ray and proto-Mighty being in this. Still, if this is what Sonic Team had as proto-Mighty's design, it doesn't eliminate the possibility of Kusonoki stepping in and refining it to what we got in SSH. Also Anton's design being cannibalised for Heroes is way more plausible now. 

[Sgt Nate V]

On 12/25/2017 at 7:33 PM, VEDJ-F said:

Here's some knowledge I just made a status about: There are no socks here.

Interesting, and it makes the designs a lot more consistent with that knowledge too. 

i thought they were always part of his shoes

am i the only one who thought that

no one has socks those insanely long

[Your Vest Friend]

And now for something completely different, as I go and answer something to Sonic Retro even though they can't see me.

So someone there has come across this Bento Box out of the blue. 

What they noted was that the background was that of Sparkling Zone (which became Spring Yard Zone later), but what they didn't note (likely because it's easy to forget) is that we've that Sonic art before; it was seen in CVG #126 along with the other crazy promo art and image assets SEGA didn't seem to use otherwise, and to be honest I think were likely the basis for the Sonic screensavers that came later. Nice to see it was used outside of a far-off British magazine company being given them.

[Pengi]

On 12/31/2017 at 7:00 PM, VEDJ-F said:

Socks not being socks not enough? How about an actual truth bomb?

This video was a German promo vid made in 1992 (as seen by the title, and the credits to the documentary). There's a lot about SEGA's general history, but the most relevant thing for us here is the section between 4:21 and about 4:36. It focuses on a Research and Development team (Sega Software R&D Dept. 8 eventually becoming Sonic Team, so that shows you how early this was done), and you can see the following concepts;

-Concept art of Nikki (yes, that Nikki from the Manga). He has the glasses as always, but shoes more like Amy and a bowtie that reminds me of the pre-Sonic rabbit concept.

-Concept art of Amy Rose, with ever so slightly different clothes (it's a dress instead of top and skirt, but it's hard to tell). 

-Concept art of Anita/Tania, Sonic's little sister in the Manga.

-Concept art of Sonic's parents from the Manga. Brenda seems rather different from her manga counterpart, not so much Paulie. 

-Other concept art of the female hedgehogs, including Tania with just gloves, neckbow and skates and what appears to be a topless Amy (not like that).

-Concept art of Vector rocking a Blues Brothers-esque combo of hat, shades and tie. This concept art looks so similar to his Chaotix self that I'm fully convinced he was developed fully way before KC and he was just nabbed. 

-Concept art of Anton's brother Matt. We didn't have a Sonic-esque look for him before, so that's nice to see.

-Concept art of Anton Verruca, who is much longer than the Manga made him out to be. His t-shirt is also not a t-shirt, it's...I don't know. 

-Concept art of Anton's parents, which we never saw in the Manga.

-Concept art of Ray the Flying Squirrel. No, seriously, that's Ray. The long nose, black fur and backing on the figure next to him might even be an early Mighty. 

-Concept art of several stages and level mechanics. 

-The Sonic mannequin.

-Some Sonic art. One we've seen a million times, one not so familiar.

-A sprite test for Sonic's regular run animation.

This does raise some questions of its own...like, what were aiming for? It looks like even back here Sonic Team were building ideas for a bigger narrative than what ended up existing, and then there's the whole timeline of Ray and proto-Mighty being in this. Still, if this is what Sonic Team had as proto-Mighty's design, it doesn't eliminate the possibility of Kusonoki stepping in and refining it to what we got in SSH. Also Anton's design being cannibalised for Heroes is way more plausible now. 

 

This is a great discovery, but what does Anton have to do with Sonic Heroes?

 

Can anyone remember which year's Summer of Sonic or Sonic Boom Q&A they talked about the Shogakukan manga? Or the one where they talked about the Chaotix characters being based on Sonic Team concepts?

[Your Vest Friend]

I'm stealing stuff from Tracker, aren't I naughty. 

Tails' character designer, Yasushi Yamaguchi, did some new Tails art for the 25th anniversary of Tails. 

There were also some conception tidbits mentioned in the description.

-The idea that Tails was going to be a girl and the idea that he was going to be a Tanuki are both wrong. The former was just a misinterpretation of a game screen mock-up (because he'd given him a bit too much chest hair). the latter stemmed from an unrelated design being a Tanuki (but Tails himself was always a fox). 

-When Yamaguchi designed him, he actually had him being five years old in mind. AoStH proving strangely close there, and also a bit awkward for those who think he should be older. 

-The original design had the bangs to the side of the head, which can be seen in the early merch as well. This was altered to the middle for the sake of the production of soft toys a bit later on, and it stuck. 

-Tails has a favourite car; The Lotus Super Seven (which was seen in the Sonic CD screen and the Manga. I checked the drawn cars against the real life things). Yamaguchi decided to give him a fave car because Sonic had one within the office already; a Lamborghini Countach (which seems familiar, but I can't say where I've seen it before).

[Big Panda]

I've known about this for a while but I thought "hey maybe there are people here who don't".

Sonic X's second Japanese ending theme actually had a promotional video released for it:

https://youtu.be/nE1j8EjJ9Gc

[Linkabel]

Found more info about the Sonic manga

Like I said, hopefully people can translate.

[Your Vest Friend]

Wahey, looks like the auction winner was on the side of archiving research too!

Looking at the lizard family, @KoDaiko was right about the mystery names being Haddo and Hogi, and I was right about the last triplet keeping the pattern. But it looks like the last boy's name is トッド (Toddo). The mother's name is ベラ (Bera), so I'm guessing she'd be Vera in English. Vera Verruca, has a ring to it.

Also, mystery sister out of nowhere! The last character of her name is actually hard to decipher. I have it down as ミグ (Migu) which is a bit weird. If it was ミク without the marks, it'd be Miku which...uh, would be funny. 

I can't believe Anton has two parents and four siblings, and we only knew about one brother for over a decade. 

[Linkabel]

Windii was able to provide translation for some of the pages

 

[Your Vest Friend]

...Mud and Hud?

That's definitely Mad and Had there, not Mud and Hud. Katakana for "Hu" doesn't even exist.

[Linkabel]

29 minutes ago, VEDJ-F said:

...Mud and Hud?

That's definitely Mad and Had there, not Mud and Hud. Katakana for "Hu" doesn't even exist.

I did notice that too. Windii did the translation quickly so it might be autocorrect messing things up.

Edit: actually Windii stands by Mud and Hud.