I just today for the first time saw footage of a Japanese-only Saturn 3D platform title called 'Nipen Manmaru'. https://segaretro.org/Ninpen_Manmaru As *soon* as I saw the footage I was *immediately* struck by how its visual style appeared virtually identical to Sonic Jam's 3D World. I am unable to read Japanese - are there any developers that may be similar? I imagine this is a total coincidence, but is there any more information about this?
Doing a quick glance I can't see any overlap between Sonic Team/Sega and Enix. Kind of seems like they just arrived at the same ideas. Both games came out on the same year, so I doubt there was any influence or a game dev jumping ship in time to influence the game. (I could be wrong though) Saying that, Jun'ichi Kanemaru was in the anime adaptation of Nipen so there's your Sonic connection
Now I sort of want to play this game. I was reflecting the other day while playing Jam World that I wouldn't have mind playing a fully fleshed out version of that
Nipen Manmaru is one of the few 3D platform games for the Saturn. It has beautiful graphics and music. The sad part is the lack of analog Gamepad support, you have to use the dpad to play. They missed a great opportunity.
I had the same thought years and years ago. Really pretty game, just super boring Came across the anime around that same time and it has the nicest ending sequence I've ever seen though, so a win all around:
