Sonic Unreleased: Odd Spin-Offs that didn't make the cut

[Mike Arcade]

So throughout the years Sonic has had a bunch of titles releasing almost yearly, regardless of quality in some cases, however surprisingly not every game came out for the blue hedgehog which is what I'll be looking at today! So let's get started with one of the more recent discoveries.

http://info.sonicretro.org/SegaSonic_Bros.

You read that right, as it turns out Sonic has two brothers who are simply Red and Yellow Recolors of him...turns out people who make Recolors were right after all! @_@
All kidding aside, besides the rather strange cover and name it was meant to be a puzzle game spin-off designed by the same guy who made Puzzle Bobble/Bust-a-Move, while no video footage of the game is out is HAS however been dumped online, so eventually one day we'll get it emulated and playable. I do like me some Puzzle Bobble but I'm not too sure about the gameplay itself, looks rather average but I can't make a full assessment of what it would be like until footage is shown or it's playable, hopefully one day it shall be so. Though one question does peg my mind, why is it that Sonic didn't have a lot of Arcade Games?

http://info.sonicretro.org/Pre-May_1993_Sonic_arcade_games

The thing is we can't be too sure how many Sonic Arcade games we're planned nor could we possibly ever know, apparently with the exception of Sega Sonic Arcade as we know it and a few Japan Only Rides no other Sonic Arcade games came out...wait no Sonic the Fighters, my bad. Perhaps they found it difficult to translate the style of Sonic over to Arcade Games, I mean Sega Sonic Arcade did fine despite being a track ball game I'd say, also there we're plans to port it internationally with Eggman getting an AoSTH like appearance but that didn't end up happening. However while Sonic's Arcade Carrier didn't end up ever taking off aside from somewhat recently there we're plenty of other spin-offs that didn't make the cut.

http://info.sonicretro.org/Sister_Sonic

An interesting re-skin of another game that didn't end up making it that far, Sister Sonic was going to be a complete reworking of the game Popful Mail, much like how Puyo Puyo 2 was turned into Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine internationally. While Puyo Puyo got to suffer this fate with so many of it's titles not released across the world, fans caught wind of this and mailed a lot of angry letters to Sega Falcom...and that actually worked! Afterwards they decided to make a faithful port of the game for the Sega-CD and that's all she wrote about Sister Sonic. I wonder how they we're going to go about this, since there we're so few character made around this time my guess is that it would have mixed the cast of AoSTH and SatAM as characters you'd get to meet throughout your adventure, or make up a bunch of new ones. However that would have gone we'll never know but I think that's for the best in this case. Ironically enough despite the failed attempts by Sega to make a Brother and/or Sister for Sonic years later before Sonic Adventure DiC would make both Manic and Sonia for Sonic Underground, funny how the world works isn't it?

http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_Ride

All that's known of this one is that it was meant to be another ride, probably like those other Japan Only Rides but for some reason didn't make the cut, the footage ended up being used in a Music Video for They Call Me Sonic, that one song that I hear still gets played in clubs to this day, that's what I've heard and no I'm not even kidding about that. XP

http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_Jr.

No this isn't about Sonic's Son or any of that crap, rather it was suppose to be an educational game, or maybe something similar to that of Ecco Jr. consdering the naming scheme here going on but didn't go very far. Probably because the Sega Pico was a bad idea and barely made any money, though I did here it lasted quite a long time, maybe that should be looked into more? Funny enough this just reminded me of probably the first ever cancelled Sonic game, how oculd I forget such a thing? Well...

http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic's_Edusoft

A very literal educational game! Probably wasn't released due to the low quality of it and considering how the Master System was pretty much out the door in most territories by 1991 (sans Brazil). I got nothing to say about this, other then it seems to be complete so you can play it yourself if you want.

http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_Sports

Yes Sonic, Tails, and Ristar of all characters would play your favorite sports! For the Sega 32X, which was such a massive failure that it's no surprise why it didn't get made, because the 32X, need I say more?

http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_DS

Here's an interesting game, though honestly I'd not call it a game, I'd say it's more of a tech demo of what could be done on the original Nintendo DS, which it is. It's been said that adjusting your speed in this on-rails demo became the basis for Sonic Rush's Boost Game play which is possible I guess, still the demo is now out there for you to play so go ahead if you can find it. I haven't tried it or DS Emulation for that matter myself but otherwise an interesting note in Sonic's history, and hey if it lead to Sonic Rush then I'd say it's a good note to leave in.

http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_Extreme

Here's a funny one, Sonic Extreme! Not to be confused with that certain title, this is a demo regarding a hover board game in the style of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and was pitched by Sega. They rejected the pitch...but not the idea, few years later we got Sonic Riders, I hope those guys got some sort of check for that, if not talk about being screwed over, thanks Sega!
That's just my speculation, it seems pretty obvious too actually, I think the world could do without this Sonic Extreme though, and I like Riders so some good came of it in the end. The last title I'll mention however we're all glad we didn't get.

http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_the_Hedgehog:_Awakening

The only mention of this game is under the former VA of Silver's resume, as far as anyone knows it didn't get very far into development. Not much speculation has been put into this project, what is known is that Silver would have been apart of this game. My theory is that this was a way too thought ahead sequel to Sonic 06, for you see originally it was meant to be a complete reboot of the Sonic Series with everyone having a clean slate, it wasn't applied like that in Sonic 06 in any possible way. However due to how much it critically bombed such plans for this game got cancelled, who knows how it could have turned out but seeing how 06 was I know that's for the best.

So anyone got thoughts on these games? Do you think any of them deserved to be completed and released? Let me know and get ready, for next time I take on Sonic X-treme and the legacy it's left behind, whose effects even now are felt to this day.

What do I mean by that? Stay tuned and you'll know the truth behind not only X-treme, but nearly every other Sonic game from Sonic Adventure and onwards...

[DaddlerTheDalek]

What ifs are always interesting.

[WarTraveller]

I do wonder what Awakening would be like...it's sort of fascinating to see a reboot SO BAD that they instantly forget it and resume the old world that they deemed to be dying.

[Mike Arcade]

http://segabits.com/blog/2017/09/30/new-sonic-xtreme-prototype-concepts-surface/

Some videos and concepts from Sonic 32X has been released!

UPDATE: https://www.sonicstadium.org/2017/10/more-sonic-x-treme-material-released-by-lead-artist/

It's been revealed that the Ross Harris, the lead artist of Sonic X-treme is the one behind this wave of new information. It's amazing what you can find out years later isn't it?

[Mike Arcade]

https://sonic.fandom.com/wiki/Treasure_Tails

So recently, Craig Stitt (artist for Sonic 2 and Sonic Spinball, who also worked on the Spyro and Ratchet & Clank games) has recently been revealing several different beta and concept content for all the works he's done over the years. Including this recent discovery that even he forgot about.
 

It's a pitch for a puzzle platform game known as Treasure Tails! For the record, this is way before Tails Adventure was ever a thing, but appears that only these presumably mock ups are the only evidence of the game that we know of. It's quite amazing to see this being discovered after all these years! And there's more...
 

 

SEGApede, also known as Astropede, is a game that you think doesn't have anything to do with Sonic. But according to Craig Stitt, was originally meant to take place within the Sonic Universe! This game, had it gone past the demo phase, could have possibly (but probably not, knowing SEGA) a part of Sonic as an indirect side entry! There's even some art assets used from Toxic Caves (Sonic Spinball) and Sonic 2's Hidden Palace Zone in one demo! There's not design document released for it...YET. Mainly because Stitt isn't sure if he's gonna charge for it to be viewed or not from what I can gather. Either way, from the blurred text that I can make out, "The Death of Dr. Robotnik?" peaks great interest in me for obvious reasons. Also from what I can make out is that the Centipede character here, Zip, is created by Robotnik.

Should that design document come out and is for free, I'll be sure to link it here or where it can be purchased, I can't imagine a PDF of it would be that expensive to get if he puts it up online like that somehow. If I get anything new I'll let you all know.

[Mike Arcade]

DYKG recently revealed some exclusive details to Sister Sonic and Sonic Chronicles 2, along with a dropped mobile game called Sonic Day!

It goes into details as to exactly what was going on with Sister Sonic, along with the details as to why we instead got a straight forward port of Popful Mail. Simply put, it makes a LOT of sense to me now after all these years, as the fan mail to Sega regarding the distain for turning Popful Mail into Sister Sonic came from Japan! Honestly, I don't know why I didn't think of that.

Also, really nice to finally get some Chronicles 2 news as to what would have happened. Had it happened, it really could have possibly changed the landscape of Sonic with Shade in the series.

Anyway, check it out guys.