Morning. Have an undocumented Sonic game: Rocky got his own arcade game. It has beach balls. https://retrocdn.net/index.php?title=File:SegaAmusementMachineGuide1994_JP.pdf&page=17 This joins Pecky and Curling Holiday in "tangentially-related early-90s Sonic arcade games you will never be able to play".
I'm willing to wager basically no units exist today. Although those beach balls might have a chance of surviving...
https://am.sega.jp/wp-content/uploads/common_161130.pdf ^ According to the above, Curling Holiday and Air Circus were both released sometime in the April 1993 to March 1994 period. In fact, they're listed right next to each other, but I don't know if that is of any significance. Curling Holiday and Air Circus are probably the reason Pecky and Rocky were included in 1996's Basket Sega Sonic plush set: There was also a plush set with Sonic, Tails and Rocky. According to the tags they were prizes at "Sega Hi-Tech Theme Park". Which I'm guessing is referring to Hi-Tech Land: https://segaretro.org/Hi-Tech_Land_Sega So was Air Circus associated with Hi-Tech Land, similarly to how Curling Holiday was associated with Galbo? There's some "new" art of Rocky on the Air Circus machine. But since the 1991/1992 Sonic settei we have scans of has alternate poses for Flicky and Pocky, maybe these Rocky poses also date back to 1991. https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_Settei_Shiryoushuu https://info.sonicretro.org/File:Sonicguide9.jpg https://info.sonicretro.org/File:Sonicguide10.jpg
I think this is just a prime example of buzzwords - Sega, like many companies in that era, used 'Hi-Tech' a lot to describe their arcade games (like the taikan simulators), their smaller amusement centres (like the Hi-Tech Lands), and, initially, their bigger theme parks (where both Curling Holiday and Air Circus were probably most often found): It seems that "Hi-Tech Theme Park" was the original name being touted for the whole Joypolis/Galbo concept, before they settled on Amusement Theme Park. I suspect those plushes were manufactured before the switch happened?
Stuff like this makes me think of visiting Disney Quest in the late 90s and how SEGA merch used to be a decent part of these rare Mega arcades, and if there's any lost artifacts from that era I've seen but forgotten about. The most obscure stuff is almost always outside the US, but from time to time I think back to those days and feel like there are little niggling things we've forgotten or that are not well documented from the Dreamcast era. Anyway, good find. Love this stuff.
In fact, looking back at the only known footage of Curling Holiday near the start of this episode of Game Catalog II... Even in compressed VHS quality, something familiar is there as well: Air Circus was actually lurking in plain sight next to it and Sonic Canball at Yokohama Joypolis. I think I even linked the video during one of the previous discussions about Curling Holiday on here - we should be better than this!
I found out that this game is apart of the SEGA CARNIVAL line of games SEGA made in the early 90's. Here's a list of the games under this line https://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=846
I covered some of this ground the last time Curling Holiday came up for discussion as well; alongside all the hi-tech simulators and such, a big part of Sega's amusement concepts around that time were carnival games. They only really differ to the ticket redemption machines seen elsewhere due to stricter Japanese laws on prize prices. The amusement machine catalogue that made the existence of Air Circus a lot more obvious has more examples to boot, and there are plenty others besides these too. The air hockey tables grouped in with them on that System 16 guide are classed as 'sports games' a page prior to it though. Japan doesn't really make them anymore now, but they've been a big part of Sega Amusements International's business for the past couple of decades, and they continue to be now that the company is mainly off doing its own thing - so we end up with the Sega brand on stuff like their original Bop-It Arcade game.
