Sonic Origins has been officially announced as part of Sonic’s 30th Anniversary festivities.
The collection will include, for the first time on consoles, the remakes of Sonic 1 and 2 produced by Christian Whitehead, also known as ‘The Taxman’. It’ll also include his remake of Sonic CD, and the first re-release of Sonic 3 & Knuckles in a long time, though it doesn’t appear that it’ll be remastered like the other titles.
The game will be coming to “the latest platforms”, and more information will be announced later in the year. It’ll be released in 2022.
When Tracker isn’t playing SEGA games, he’s talking about SEGA games. Or drawing about SEGA games. Or all of the above. You can also catch him over on Twitter.
The first images of an unreleased Mega Drive Sonic spin-off called Treasure Tails have appeared online. These come directly from Craig Stitt who many may know as an artist on Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic Spinball. Stitt himself pitched the game back in February 1993. The game was meant to be a forced-perspective platform/puzzle/adventure game featuring Tails as the main playable character. It supposedly never made it to a playable state and the images seen in this article come from a VHS tape that Stitt have put together in 1995.
In addition to this discovery, the first concept images of Boomer the Turtle have also appeared. This was a character Stitt designed for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 as Sonic’s original sidekick before Tails was even conceived. The character was ultimately scrapped.
Also released is footage of another unreleased title that Craig Stitt pitched called Astropede. The game features a centipede protagonist that runs at high speeds through a stage that uses graphics from the then-unreleased Hidden Palace stage from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Stitt had hopes that the character could exist as a part of Sonic’s Universe. Check out the footage from SEGAbits below:
Off the back of its box office success earlier this year, the voice of Sonic himself has confirmed the release date for the sequel to the Sonic the Hedgehog movie, which will now arrive on the 8th of April 2022.
The sequel was first revealed back in May, with confirmation that director Jeff Fowler is returning, with Pat Casey and Josh Miller also returning to write the script. Ben Schwartz effectively confirms his return as the voice of Sonic with this announcement. Jim Carrey has previously expressed his interest about returning as Dr. Robotnik but we have no official confirmation at this time.
The original Sonic the Hedgehog movie released back in February 2020 and is currently the 2nd highest grossing film of 2020 and the highest grossing video game adaptation of all time in North America.
Weekly Famitsu have revealed a new feature of the upcoming SEGA Ages port of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for Nintendo Switch. This port will also include the ‘Knuckles in Sonic 2’ functionality that would normally come from locking the game onto Sonic & Knuckles. This allows players to play the entire game as Knuckles the Echidna as opposed to Sonic or Tails.
The SEGA Ages port of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is still without a release date, but it will be coming to the Nintendo Switch as a downloadable title. The game will also add additional actions, a Super Sonic mode and online rankings. The SEGA Ages collection has been entirely developed by M2 for Nintendo Switch and often feature exclusive features.
UPDATE
Overnight an additional Sonic 2 prototype has been made available by the good people at Hidden Palace. This prototype dates from August 1992 and can be downloaded by clicking here.
ORIGINAL STORY Hidden Palace‘s Sonic Month continues with a fresh selection of unreleased Sonic prototypes. This time we have 3 different releases of Sonic Chaos for Master System and Game Gear and a separate Sonic the Hedgehog 2 release for Mega Drive.
The Sonic Chaos releases date from May, June and July 1993 with the May release being an early Game Gear prototype that features different character sprites from the final build. Download links for each of these releases are listed below:
For fans of either game, these prototypes reveal some fascinating insight into the games’ development and are well worth a look if you have any interest in either game.
A collection of floppy disks previously owned by SEGA Technical Institute employee Tom Payne has ended up in the hands of Jason Moorhouse, a California-based retro game shop owner. With the help of Frank Cifaldi of the Video Game History Foundation, Bob Morgan and Jessie Perez, these disks have been dumped and converted into a readable format and some incredible discoveries have been made.
The most interesting of the bunch is an unreleased Mega Drive game called Spinny & Spike vs the Nightmare King. The game is not in a playable state, but various art assets have been ripped and a selection of them are viewable here:
Also included are a huge selection of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 development documents. A lot of these documents are previously released concepts by Yasushi Yamaguchi, but there are some new discoveries in here and we’ve included a selection below.
If you want to read the full story on the origins of the box of floppies and exactly what is contained on each disk then click here to go to the Megabits blog and have a look around. There is some truly fascinating stuff here.
A fresh batch of games have been announced for the Mega Drive Mini. As with the first set, the titles vary by region, but there’s some surprising picks for both regions – namely in the form of the Disney Mickey Mouse titles! The announcement also confirms the previously mooted “one game per series” policy only applies to the Japanese version of the mini console, as Sonic 2 has been confirmed for the Western edition now.
The new batch for the Western Mega Drive/Genesis Mini is:
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Earthworm Jim
Streets of Rage 2
Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse
World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck
Shinobi III – Return of the Ninja Master
Thunder Force III
Super Fantasy Zone
Contra Hard Corps/Probotector
Landstalker
The new batch for the Japanese version is after the jump:
When Tracker isn’t playing SEGA games, he’s talking about SEGA games. Or drawing about SEGA games. Or all of the above. You can also catch him over on Twitter.
UPDATE 13:23: Details of the European Mega Drive Mini have come to light. An official website is now available to view. The European version includes 3 button controllers instead of 6 button controllers. The games line-up also includes some differences. The current EU line-up includes Ecco the Dolphin, Castlevania: The New Generation, Space Harrier II, Shining Force, Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine, ToeJam & Earl, Comix Zone, Sonic the Hedgehog, Altered Beast and Gunstar Heroes. There is only the 2 controller option for Europe and the whole package costs £69.99/€79.99.
The SEGA Mega Drive Mini will launch worldwide on September 19th 2019 in all regions. The news came from SEGA Fes that the mini console will launch with 40 games and come in 2 variants: a $60 option with a single 6 button controller, and a $80 option with 2 controllers. Controllers are connected via USB and are the same dimensions as an original 6 button Mega Drive controller.
The only games revealed to be on the system at this time are from the Japanese version. These will likely differ on the US and European Mega Drive Minis. The only titles announced for the Japanese Mega Drive Mini at this time are:
– Sonic the Hedgehog 2
– Comix Zone
– Gunstar Heroes
– Space Harrier II
– Puyo Puyo 2
– Castlevania Bloodlines
– Powerball
– Rent-a-Hero
– Madou Monogatari Ichi
As is fairly standard with mini consoles, the Mega Drive Mini will feature a “save anywhere” feature and it has also been revealed that the menu music has been composed by Yuzo Koshiro of Streets of Rage fame.
In an interview with Game Watch, M2’s Naoki Horii has revealed a lot of details about the Switch line of SEGA Ages ports.
Some key highlights include plans to port Sonic the Hedgehog 2 to the system and include elements originally removed from the game due to console limitations. Also revealed are plans to port Dreamcast games to the Switch and Horii confirmed there’s 3 key titles that the team are currently working on, but didn’t mention which ones.
The current batch of SEGA Ages ports will be a part of what M2 are calling, “season one”. They are planning 15 games for this season and the previously announced Thunder Force AC port will include additional stages and more colours than its original release. The team are also using fan feedback to help enhance their port of Gain Ground.
There has also been confirmation that the Model 1 emulation they are using for Virtua Racing allows them to improve the game. There is even talk of potentially porting the Model 1 Star Wars Arcade game if they can get authorisation to use the Star Wars license.
M2 have also revealed that they are planning to do a 2nd season of SEGA Ages ports once they’ve completed work on the first 15 games.
The SEGA Ages line currently consists of ports of Sonic the Hedgehog, Thunder Force IV and Phantasy Star which is currently Japan exclusive. A port is due for a Western release but there is currently no release dates. Other titles confirmed for a SEGA Ages release include Alex Kidd in Miracle World, Gain Ground, Space Harrier, Out Run, Columns II, Thunder Force AC, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Virtua Racing. 4 more unannounced games will round out season one.
Weekly Famitsu have revealed that the next batch of SEGA Ages titles to release on Switch will include Columns II, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Out Run and more interestingly, Thunder Force AC. Thunder Force AC is a weird little title in that it’s an arcade port of Thunder Spirits for SNES. Thunder Spirits itself is also an altered port of Thunder Force III for Mega Drive.
The only new features revealed at this time are that Columns II is getting an online versus mode, while Out Run will featured newly arranged music tracks. There are currently no screenshots, video or release dates set for these titles at this time.
The SEGA Ages line for Nintendo Switch is still currently Japan exclusive. Development on these ports is lead by M2 who previously worked on the SEGA Ages ports to 3DS.
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