Interesting... There's a lot of story info floating about Sonic the Fighters. it would be great to see how much is true (and not just fanon).
The other green-bordered inset looks to be communication from AM2 as well. In the main article, they seem to mention that the game's intro depicts the story from the "Story" column underneath. Here are the relevant parts: https://imgur.com/a/GTZZngk It seems legit.
Here's the story for Sonic the Fighters. Spoiler A large quantity of robots suddenly appeared on the land where peaceful days continued thanks to Sonic's frequent actions, and laid waste to its surroundings. "This must be Eggman's doing! But where is this huge bunch of robots coming from..." as Tails muttered to himself, he got an emergency message from Espio. In the video that Espio sent, there was a huge fortress floating on the satellite orbit. Dr. Eggman was dispatching large quantities of robots from the giant space fortress, "Death Egg 2"! Sonic decided to get to Death Egg 2 alone by using a single-seat space rocket "LUNA POX" that Tails invented. However, in order to fly the rocket, 8 Chaos Emeralds must be collected to act as a power source. Sonic's friends, who spread throughout the world, were guarding the Chaos Emeralds separately so that they are not misused by Eggman (one of them ended up being stolen by Fang in the meantime, however...). First, Sonic and Tails flew over to where Knuckles is. "If the rocket is single-seat, shouldn't the toughest guy be the one riding it?" Knuckles provoked Sonic after hearing what's going on. When Sonic, who obviously believed he was the strongest, accepted Knuckles's challenge and was about to fight him, Tails forced his way between the two. Tails proposed fighting fair and square in the ring, and the one who wins against all of their buddies in the world will ride the rocket. Who will be the one to win against everyone, collect the Chaos Emeralds, and save the world? The gong of fate is now echoing. It's all silly fluff for the most part, but at least I know why everyone is fighting each other.
Great stuff Windii - thanks for the translation! As you say, pretty much fluff, but it's nice to know what the story is. = ) Found it interesting that Espio of all people contacts Tails directly about the Death Egg - was he still a detective even pre-Heroes? I was sure I'd read that somewhere (with Vector and Charmy also made detectives as of Heroes), but can't seem to find any info stating it in Espio's character profile on the wiki. If it's legit info, does anyone remember where this is stated? Also, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the name of Tails' ship, "LUNA POX", is a side effect of the English words "Lunar Fox" being written out phonetically in the original Japanese text?
Yeah, in the Chaotix Manual it states that Espio is a detective. That's why Espio got involved in the 32X game. There's a translation of the Chaotix Character profiles on Sonic Jam, but it's more of a gist. It's really sweet they had Espio spying on Eggman in Sonic the Fighters and they even explained how Fang got his emerald. The Pox/Fox is interesting, because P and F are distinct letters in Japanese (I think). Although, I believe the Japanese letters for P are the same as F but just with a marker to indicate the different sound.
Close enough. ???? "pox" ???? "hox" ???? "pooks" ???? "fooks" or "hooks" ????? "fox" Meanwhile, "LUNA" is one stroke away from "LUNAR" (?? vs. ???).
So this was just posted on ResetERA. Collection of (previously untranslated?) interviews from the original Genesis Sonic development team: The source is here. Amongst the revelations are that Sonic 3 and Knuckles' special stage was inspired by Dragon Ball Z. Are these interviews new?
The interviews are new, but some of the facts, such as the DBZ link and Sonic 3 using SVP were mentioned in the Sonic Jam guide. But there's lots of new stuff including Naka's opinion on Sonic Underground!
Ah - thanks for the insight dude. So cool, they're mostly new then. Just read through them all and it's a treasure trove of information. There's no earth-shattering revelations but it's a super interesting look in to various timeframes of Sonic from inside Sega over the years. It's a really good read and I recommend everyone check them out. Perhaps we should upload them to the wiki?
Right, thanks for reminding me about the Chaotix character profiles. I went ahead and added those too.
Thanks for the Sonic the Fighters translation Windii! It firmly establishes a few interesting factoids that weren't known (or could only be inferred) before. * Espio was the one who sent the Death Egg 2 intel video to Sonic and Tails. * The various stages/arenas are spread over the world. * Espio, Bark and Bean are Sonic's friends. * The fighting tournament was a formal arrangement. * The Chaos Emeralds were separated and entrusted to Sonic's friends to keep them out of Eggman's hands. * Fang stole his Chaos Emerald. The last two points are a little amusing, taken together, as it implies Fang stole his Chaos Emerald from one of Sonic's other friends, not featured in the game. Ray? Mighty? Vector? Charmy? We'll never know! (Maybe it was Honey!) There's also a Metal Sonic profile on page 43 of the JP manual that fills in some lore. It would be worth having on the wiki (might even encourage fans to stop misattributing "Metal Sonic Kai" to the final boss). The Sonic 2 (16-bit) and Sonic & Tails 2 (Triple Trouble) manuals have character profiles as well.
Ack. Yeah, Metal Sonic is now on that page too. This is why you make sure to check the manual's summary first. orz I'm gonna look over the other manuals later.
Great stuff - thanks so much for translating all these, Windii! The Chaotix character profiles are pretty interesting - particularly Charmy's, which sounds quite different from any other depiction of his personality, be it Heroes or either of the western comics running at the time. Not seen his personality in the Sonic manga series, which as far I know him and Amy originate from - was it in any way close to the description given here? It's also interesting that he's the only character for whom no age was given - since Heroes released I've seen it discussed countless times that his age from Chaotix was retconned, but it looks like that was based entirely on the profiles from the US Chaotix manual (in which, ironically enough, Charmy is the only character whose age is specified). In terms of character profiles, I know the Triple Trouble manual has some, though I'd imagine Fang's profile would probably be the most interesting of the bunch. Wonder if there's any mention of the whole half-wolf, half-jerboa thing which recently came to light? On a side note, talking of Triple Trouble, from reading your translations I love that even the manual's story writers couldn't be bothered to explain why Knuckles is even an antagonist! "Knuckle stood in their way with no sense or reason as to why"... some classic hand-waving there, haha. XD Having said that, I suppose it's possible more info is present in the aforementioned character profiles; his motivations are briefly touched on there in the US manual ("Dr. Robotnik has tricked him..."), though I've no idea how closely (if at all) the US character profiles align with the Japanese ones - the Chaotix ones, for example, certainly changed quite a bit between regions!
Excellent work as always Windii! Nope, it doesn't. Windii's translations, however, have picked out subtle things that we didn't know in the past (such as Knuckles motivations in Chaotix), so I look forward to what other things Windii can find in the manuals. Knuckles has a (relatively) lengthy profile in the game manual which has been untranslated. I wonder if that reveals any info about his motivations. (Although from what I gather from Japanese fans, I don't think it does). Comparing the various stories, it looks like the Western divisions just re-wrote the stories without much (any?) knowledge of the Japanese stories. So it's probably best to consider them as a separate continuity.
Another thing I've noticed through reading these translations is Knuckles' nickname, "Knuckle", which seems to have been phased out post-1995 - the manuals for Sonic 3, Sonic & Knuckles, Triple Trouble and Chaotix all seem pretty consistent in using it, but in later games like Sonic Blast or Sonic R it's nowhere to be found (unless it's mentioned in a character profile in a later game, anyway - certainly doesn't seem present in the translated story text). Then again, Knuckles seems pretty solitary anyway, so I'm not sure who exactly's supposed to have given him this nickname anyway! The Sonic 3 manual simply says it's what his friends call him - presumably some of the animal friends living on Angel Island? On that note - I'd always assumed the whole Floating Island/Angel Island name change was a localisation thing, but from these translations seems the Japanese manuals for Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles use "Floating Island" too! The first Zone's obviously called Angel Island in all languages, but was that being the name of the island as a whole simply an Adventure-era retcon, then?
Unfortunately, we don't have many scans from the 1992-1994 Sonic manga. It ran through a bunch of different Shogakukan publications, with several different writers/artists. Each magazine basically followed its own storyline, so Charmy's personality and story may even differ slightly from magazine to magazine. Charmy was actually designed by Naoto Ohshima. Sega of Japan had a hand in designing characters for the manga, though the premise/scenario was developed by Kenji Terada. As for Amy, it doesn't sound like she was necessarily developed "for" the manga, so much as that just happened to be the first product she was used in. Both Naoto Ohshima and Kazuyuki Hoshino have said that Sega wanted Sonic to have a girlfriend character, a "Minnie Mouse" style character. Ohshima has said that he designed Amy, whilst Hoshino has said that there were many hands involved in her creation, including himself, Ohshima, the marketing department and editors working on the manga. So everything indicates that she was intended to be part of the larger Sonic franchise from the get-go. It is interesting how much Charmy and Vector were changed from Chaotix to Sonic Heroes, whilst Espio largely remained the same (aside from a slight age change and the ninja angle). In the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis: Collected Works book, Hoshino said that he liked Espio's Samurai-like abilities and stoic personality, and that's the reason they decided to make him a ninja in Sonic Heroes. And of course, his detective occupation carried over. Since Espio was created specifically for the Chaotix game, it could be that Sonic Team wanted to remain relatively faithful to the original vision of the character, whilst Vector and Charmy were characters who pre-dated Chaotix, so they were fine disregarding the Chaotix development team's interpretation of their characters. Seems to be. It's one of the differences between the "Modern" games and the "Classic" games. Flicky and co were absent from Sonic Adventure and most of the games from that era. They didn't really take part in a modern game's story until Sonic Lost World and Sonic Runners, both of which established that they don't speak the same language as Sonic (but they are intelligent enough to speak a language, that Omochao can translate). In the classic games however, there's that line about Knuckles' friends on the island giving him that nickname, the JP Tails Adventures manual has Flicky speaking to Tails and the Mega Drive version of Sonic 3D has the Flickies speaking to Sonic in the ending. Then there's the Sonic 1 promotional manga, which whilst not necessarily canonical, had Picky and the others speaking. There's even a piece of Sonic Drift promotional art that has Flicky with a mic acting as commentator. In the 1997 Sonic Jam Official Guide, Takashi Iizuka refers to the island as Angel Island, when talking about Sky Sanctuary Zone. http://info.sonicretro.org/Sky_Sanctuary_Zone
I added the profiles from the Sonic & Tails 2 and Sonic 2 (Mega Drive). The Sonic 2 manual has more profiles on the enemies, but I haven't added those because there's just too many. Maybe next time. The manual for the former does not say what species Fang is but it does say that he lives in subspace. Also, Knuckles was indeed fooled by Eggman in the game. Oops.
Great work again Windii! Really loved reading all these. Regarding the Classic/Modern differences with names: Shiro Maekawa took over as lead writer starting with Sonic Adventure (and stayed on until Sonic Riders Zero Gravity). He stated in an interview from 2006 that he recreated Sonic as he liked, so it could be possible he dropped some of the naming stuff that he was unhappy with.
I was going by this line in the interview: Actually, I did not like the Sonic in Genesis era. Honestly, it did not fit his character. So, when I was put in Sonic Adventure, I was enthusiastic, “I'll create the Sonic that I like!”, and also did various nonsense (things like dropping a tub onto my head), but in the end, I feel that I was just dancing on Sonic's palm. That guy's chest is huge. I cannot win easily, can I? But the interview is about SA2, so he might have been using the name Sonic Adventure as a shorthand for SA2 (i.e. maybe he was speaking causally and dropped off the 2).
