Technically an undocumented Sonic game: "Sonic Canball" you throw balls at Sonic's bonce. Most hits wins. But here's the thing about Joypolis - they're indoor theme parks. The content changes yearly to keep people coming back. They've been in operation in Japan for more than 25 years - they will never be documented properly in the English speaking world.
We actually have a piece of concept art that provides some intended badnik zone placements. Splats is listed for zone 6 (Scrap Brain). https://info.sonicretro.org/File:GD_Sonic1_GDC2018_Enemies1.png
You know that hidden and really difficult 8th special stage in Sonic CD? Turns out if you manage to beat it, there's a special stage staff screen: https://twitter.com/suddendesu/status/1216385775496986626 I'm sure someone's found this before, but it wasn't on the wiki and I certainly didn't know about it. Neat.
I did manage to beat that. It was hard but if you have already beaten all other 7 special stages (which I have managed to do) then you eventually will beat the hidden one. Love my 6-button arcade controller! It's on the wiki now.
The old issue 300 of the Corocoro magazine got officially uploaded online so I browsed it and found some Sonic pages. Sonic X, Adventure DX, Advance 2 previews and a Dash & Spin 4-koma.
Another historical sales update from NPD. They posted a series of lists of the United States' Top 20 Best-Selling Games of every year, spanning an entire quarter-century from 1995 all the way up to 2019. Note that these sales are based on dollar sale rankings, rather than units sold. Only two Sonic games charted: Sonic 3D Blast for 1996 and the original Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games for 2008. They both bottomed out their respective years at #20. Unless I'm mistaken, Sonic 3D Blast is also the only published Sega game from their first-party publisher/console maker era that made any of the 25 years' worth of Top 20 charts in the U.S. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Just found this on Twitter, and uh... https://twitter.com/mindlessQuartz/status/1218358987437023233?s=20 I'm not so sure if anyone knew about this already? Edit: And if it is legit.
if it turns out it was made with TTS assets, it means they still either have said assets or the proto floating around within Sega. the trees look pretty final tho, so I'm not sure if that is the case :/
Sounds like she just assumed it was an authentic screenshot instead of a mockup. I would pay it no mind.
According to Japanese Wikipedia, Toshio Furukawa voiced Sonic in the Sonic 1 commercial. This appears to be a known thing on the Internet, but doesn't appear to be on any actual Sonic fansites or wikis. Does anyone know if there's a reliable source for this information? EDIT: Masato Nishimura said that Toshio Furukawa voiced Sonic in Waku Waku Sonic Patrol Car, but the wiki credits Takeshi Kusao. He also said that they considered asking Furukawa or Kusao to provide Sonic's voice clips in Sonic CD. Kusao is credited as Sonic in SegaSonic the Hedgehog, but do the other arcade machines have credits?
Interesting; hadn't heard that before. I poked around, and saw it referenced on (Japanese) Twitter a couple times, as well as in this separate Sonic wiki article. It still doesn't seem to be properly sourced, but does mention the specific line from the commercial.
Just edited my post as you posted this (see above). Masato Nishimura had mentioned on Twitter that Toshio Furukawa was Sonic's first voice actor, but references Waku Waku Sonic Patrol Car, rather than the commercial. Patrol Car was a 1991 release, while the other arcade machines were 1993 releases, so it tracks that Furukawa was the first VA and Kusao replaced him around 1992/1993. But I think it would be good to have concrete sources for each of these individually.
Some of you may probably already know this, but I just discovered a tweet from Shiro Maekawa in which he says that his original story drafts for Sonic '06 explicitly connected it to Sonic Rush. Maybe Sonic Team did have an explanation for why Blaze was somehow from an alternate dimension in Rush but also from the future in '06?
could be that the original idea was that she was from an alternate dimension, but re-tooled it to be from the future when they dropped that connection.
It's too bad that Shiro Maekawa didn’t state what the connection was. The connection wasn't in that Sonic 2006 Excel file that's floating around, so I am guessing it mustn't have been very significant.
I think - I think - it might've been showing her arriving in the Sol Dimension at the end of the game. That does sort of have its own problems, but it'd be better than Iizuka's "explanation" he gave in 2012.