For those not familiar with the animation: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wE2dVQBXe[/youtube] So I was rewatching the "Man of the Year" Sonic animation that was in Sonic Jam and noticed it seems to be set in a stylised variant of San Francisco The opening panorama covers a building that looks like the Transamerica Pyramid, the coastline roughly approximates SF coastline (especially with the aforementioned skyscraper, and the piers jutting out seem similar). Robotnik's Island could correspond to Alcatraz (though moved a bit). Market Street seems to be represented, and Victorian style buildings built on a slope. Something to do with Sega having HQ in San Francisco? Except the game was released 1997 (animation probably earlier) and Sega only moved their HQ into SF city proper in 1998: http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Sega-Expected-to-Move-HQ-To-S-F-From-Redwood-City-3003921.php Also again raises questions of who actually animated this. Also, considering that the animation deal with Sonic having to deal with an imposter in a San Francisco-esque city, this game seems to predict Sonic Adventure 2 a bit. Of course, I've always felt that the animation inspired parts of the original Sonic Adventure (the running along the faces of skyscrapers is how Sonic is first introduced to us in that game, and the end part of Speed Highway let us engage in similar stunts gameplay wise) Anyway, thought some here would be interested.
Great, now all I've got stuck in my head is Sonic and Robotnik doing the "I've found you, faker!" "Faker? I think you're the fake hedgehog around here!" scene...
Well wasn't Sega of America located in San Francisco at the time? If they were behind the cartoon it would make sense that they would take some inspiration from their location, similar as to what they did with SA2 which was developed in America.
Video games are obsessed with the place... when they're not obsessing over New York. Sega of America was actually based in Redwood City (which isn't that far away) before relocating there. There's divisions of all sorts in that general region - EA, Capcom, Konami, 2K, Sony Computer Entertainment, Tecmo Koei, Ubisoft and it goes on and on and on.
In the Sonic Jam Strategy Guide, Yuji Naka mentions that the animation was as a test for 3D backgrounds in 2D animation. It's a shame we don't know more about it. Was it planned to be animated series? Or was it some sort of game idea (that used 3D backgrounds with hand drawn animated sprites)?
