This is the first time I've read any of this - if a link can be proven, things might get interesting.
They aren't even pre-Sonic 2. The only such example I can even think of is Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse's Seven Gems of the Rainbow. Maybe the seven Mushroom Retainers and the seven magic wands of the seven kings from Super Mario Bros. and Suoer Mario Bros. 3, respectively. And not a single example relating to "luck," implicitly or explicitly, before or after. And plenty of RPGs defying seven-count axiom. (I can only think of examples from Mario RPGs and Zelda, although I'm not the biggest aficionado of the genre. I scanned through the first six Final Fantasy pages on TvTropes games to no avail, and gave up caring)
According to wikipedia's article on the number 7: In some particular version of Chinese Taoism, there are 7 colours/elements. though it appears that the main article simplifies this to 5 1. Golden Star 2. White Clouds 3. Blue Heavens/Sky 4. Black (or Lack of colour) - Earth or Space 5. Green Trees/Wood 6. Red Fire 7. Qi (Purple?) Sadly, this doesn't correspond to the colours of the emeralds.
Ahhhhh Castle in the Sky. It's one of those classics that are shown in Animation school to give artists a reference on art/animation techniques. So Dragon Ball References, but really it's Journey to the West references since this is what Dragon Ball is based on. Also Vegeta seems like an inspiration for Shadow the Hedgehog. But Vegeta and Shadow are: -Both cocky, proud warriors -Are intelligent in battle and have a good fighting senses -Lost something dear to them: For Vegeta - Planet Vegeta. For Shadow - Maria Kintobor. -Both started off as villians, then after being on Earth for a while gradually transformed from anti-hero to hero while making friends and viewing former foes as allies -When Vegeta and Shadow go Super, their hairdo are the same from their base transformation unlike Sonic with Goku -Both cared for their father (Vegeta to King Vegeta, Shadow to Dr Kintobor) Things they aren't similar with: -Vegeta doesn't use guns, but Shadow does -Shadow has been saved from near death by Robotnik, Vegeta for the most part didn't need saving -Vegeta has a family - For family-friendliness Sega won't do this because it's rare for cartoon characters for all ages to marry and have kids. -Shadow being born in the ARK above earth as part of Project Shadow using the DNA of Black Doom and Dr Kintobor's research to create the ultimate lifeform, while Vegeta is a Saiyan being born in Planet Vegeta as a heir to King Vegeta -Shadow is not a prince, Vegeta is/was -Shadow's father is a scientist who initially created him to do good for humans, Vegeta's father is a saiyan who wanted his son to surpass him and other saiyans as part of the royal-blood, and also be stronger than Frieza -Shadow has Chaos Control which can stop time, teleport him, and teleport a large object while Vegeta relies on his speed and/or Goku's instant transmission to get to places
There really isn't much consistency with the colors until Sonic R standardized them (sorta; just the group shot shown after Radiant Emerald) The finalized set is pretty much the two sets of primary colors, the additive RGB and the subtractive CMY (though magenta is often more violet) and white. Before this is kinda all around the shop, and even Mania reintroduced the infrequent orange Emerald. If you'll permit me to grasp at some more straws, I think there's potential in SI Base Units: The colors aren't really any match to any game's set, however the SI Base Units are derived from the same International System of Units that name the Mega Drive and Sega Pico. Moreover, two of the seven units are time and electrical current, both of which are demonstrated by Chaos Control and their magnetic attraction to each other, not to mention how they sometimes arc electricity. Distance may also be relevant to Chaos Control. They glow too, so that accounts for luminous intensity. How temperature and substance factor in isn't readily apparent to me. :specialed:
Makes sense. All the ending art renders would have been made by Sonic Team. Jon Burton confirmed that Sonic Team made those higher quality character models, which TT had to make lower-poly in order to run in-game. Presumably, the in-game and save file icon Chaos Emeralds were TT's work, as they don't match Sonic Team's emerald colours. The modern Chaos Emerald colours were first established in Sonic Jam, in the Special Stage mode results screen, though the "purple" emerald is more of a pink. It's pretty cool, because you can see which 16-bit emerald corresponds to which modern emerald - Sonic Jam displays the emeralds from left to right, top to bottom. So Sonic 2 has a purple emerald and a pink emerald. In the Sonic Jam results screen, the purple emerald is represented by the dark blue emerald. Spoiler What's really odd though, is that there are EIGHT Chaos Emerald colours in Jam. The Special Stage mode results screens for Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles use an orange Chaos Emerald in place of the yellow Chaos Emerald. To make things more confusing, in the original games Sonic 3's second Chaos Emerald is yellow, but S&K and S3&K's second Chaos Emerald is orange. Spoiler Prior to Sonic Adventure, it was kind of implied that there were multiple sets of Chaos Emeralds, with each game's manual saying that the Chaos Emeralds have been on South/West Side/Floating/Flicky Island since ancient times. The most notable of these is Sonic 3's manual, where the 7 Chaos Emeralds Knuckles was watching over disappear and Eggman tricks Knuckles into believing Sonic is "targeting the Chaos Emeralds on this island" - and the game itself starts up with Sonic still possessing the Chaos Emeralds from Sonic 2. Then there's Sonic the Fighters, which Sonic Team had some oversight of, with its eight Chaos Emeralds. STI's Sonic story documents have this to say about the emeralds: Westside Island is a very ancient island with plenty of treasures and ancient ruins. It is also said to contain a small supply of a very powerful natural crystals called "Chaos Emeralds". Takashi Iizuka's answer to a question about Hyper Sonic at Sonic Boom 2013 was quite interesting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJoczAwIdzY&t=8m18s The audio isn't the best, but it would be great if someone could confirm how literally the interpreter conveyed what Iizuka said. "Since the whole Hyper Sonic thing is based around having multiple Chaos Emeralds, that's all part of the Classic Sonic universe. In Modern Sonic all those emeralds don't exist, so as a result Hyper Sonic doesn't exist." Iizuka clearly says "Super Emeralds", so it could be that he's just saying the Super Emeralds don't exist, rather than the Super Emeralds being tied to the existence of multiple Chaos Emeralds. (Either way, interesting how he was referring to Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic as different settings/universes, even back in 2013.) Still, Iizuka has said a few times that he wanted to "clean up" the number of emeralds with Sonic Adventure, so it's possible he was talking about more than just the Super Emeralds.
What is interesting to note is that Super Sonic, while originally depicted with green eyes, was later changed to red; probably done in order to make it less like the standard Super Saiyan form as seen in the anime. A little known fact about Super Saiyan 1 is that in original drafts, Toriyama planned to have Super Saiyans with red eyes (Since it was brought on by rage.), and later changed it to a more blue-green tone, as evident by his full color tankobon covers and promotional art, the same shade can even be found in SS1's original appearance in the Namek saga. The bright green SS1 eyes are in fact a fabrication of Toei Animation during the Cell saga which Toriyama didnt adapt himself until much later on, just like Bulma's hair color confusion. The similarities between the Chaos Emeralds and the Dragon Balls are admittedly quite uncanny (Seven in number, in hard to reach locations), with their only "difference" being how they act mechanically.
Well, if we want to be specific he was depicted with black eyes in Sonic 2, and the green eyes came in with Sonic 3K. Even then, they're limited to the sprites: every other, more detailed, image of Super Sonic in the game shows him with black eyes. I've edited the bottom set to show what he would look like with the green eyes. All I've done is coloured the black green and reworked some pixels in the left most depiction I figure, though this is pure speculation and is in no way backed by facts, that they were going to go ahead with the green eyes as a reference, but realised it might be a bit too close to Super Saiyan for comfort and changed them back to black on the larger depictions, but it was too late to do so on the spritework.
I always felt like it was 7 because 6 in sonic 1 never did anything to sonic, so they can use the excuse of 1 more is enough for super. I'd like to see the emeralds used to clense the planet again honestly, like Sonic 1 SMS
This has always been my reasoning as well, but now I feel compelled to ask: between Super Sonic and the seventh emerald, is there any evidence that points to which came first during development?
Super Sonic's palette is in the Simon Wai prototype, so it was at least partially implemented before the special stages were. Takashi Iizuka seems to think that the Sonic 2 levels were designed with Super Sonic in mind (which is why Knuckles in Sonic 2 was doable, but Knuckles in Sonic 1 was not), but I think he's talking out his arse. Then again, there's enough star posts in Emerald Hill Zone to get all the emeralds, and you probably wouldn't bother doing that if it was only going to give a Sonic 1-style good ending. EDIT: And then I reminded myself Hidden Palace Zone existed, so that might have been the treat. We may never know why they went with 7 special stages - perhaps they felt the need to compensate for the levels they'd axed, or they just wanted to go one better than the previous game.
Does the stubby Wai start marker even have the spinning star graphics? Is the object anywhere in the game's code? For all we know, at that point the plan was just to do big rings again, but then you wouldn't be able to use Super Sonic until the very end of the game.
Maybe just a coincidence but in Sonic X, which i know Naka and co were quite involved in, the Chaos Emeralds would scatter off in all directions after being used, which was also a property that the Dragon Balls had. Granted that's not exclusive to the Dragon balls, but it's interesting they physically have the same 'post-use' rection rather than simply vanishing like they did in the Sonic 1 good ending.
