The Honey the Cat Story ▸ A Character Saved By The Fans

hey folks welcome to this video profiling a truly fascinating sonic the hedgehog character today we'll be exploring the history of honey the cat a character inspired by another sega franchise who was scrapped and went undiscovered for nearly a whole decade until being uncovered by curious fans and canonized by sega we'll be taking a look at honey's inspiration the story of her discovery and her characterization after she was re-welcomed into the sonic family honey is an interesting character to talk about because she's attained a kind of cult popularity amongst fans and for good reason she looks iconic before i begin if you have a sonic character you'd like me to cover in a future video please let me know in the comments i've got plenty of ideas but i always love to hear your thoughts too and if you enjoy this video there'll be a link to a playlist to my other sonic profile videos at the end i've talked about being the dynamite assurer the hedgehog and more so plenty to sink your teeth into now without further ado let's get going our story starts in 1993 with the release of the revolutionary virtua fighter in arcades created by sega am2 virtua fighter is widely regarded as the first 3d fighting game ever released in japan virtua fighter was a phenomenally massive success it's one of the highest grossing arcade games of all time also the game's sega saturn port was the best-selling saturn game at the console's release and the game was received exceedingly well by the japanese gaming press the reception of the game was decidedly more lukewarm in the west virtua fighter was widely praised for its revolutionary graphics but was hardly as culturally significant a game as it was in japan virtua fighter leads us on to fighting vipers fighting vipers is a 3d fighting game also developed by sega am2 and originally released in arcades in 1995 and then later on the sega saturn fighting vipers was built using the same engine as virtua fighter but with a couple of key differences it featured an armor mechanic where the opponent's armor could be chipped away at and even broken off the fighting arenas were all enclosed and the game was targeted towards a more western audience with the game being set in america and the crew and cast of characters not being based on martial arts stereotypes amongst these characters was honey who ended up being renamed candy in the west for unknown reasons dressed in red leather armor with angel wings on the back honey became the flagship character for fighting vipers honey is actually a 16 year old fashion student who designed her own costume and entered into the fighting vipers tournament solely to promote her own fashion range honey has a weird cat theme going on too her fighting stance is a little cat-like and a lot of her moves have cat in the name too one of the ironic things about fighting vipers is that it was considerably more successful in japan than in the us despite being designed with western audiences in mind the american release was also heavily censored honey's ending which was a little bit racy was toned down also it's possible to chip away honey's armor to reveal a bra and g-string as well in the japanese release another feature removed in the us in short honey was a little bit too sexualized for american audiences whatever the case honey became a very popular character over in japan and became something of a cosplay icon and while we're on the topic of censorship another thing that was removed when fighting vipers travelled westwards was the copious amount of pepsi signs and references scattered throughout the game this was the result of a licensing deal reached with pepsi that didn't extend to international markets incidentally the fabled pepsi man the weird superhero mascot dreamed up by pepsi of japan is actually playable in the game if you suffer a perfect loss to the arcade mode's first opponent pepsi man will appear to challenge you beat him and he becomes playable pepsi man is only in the japanese arcade release but was added to the american sega saturn release at least what does this have to do with sonic i hear you say well fighting vipers features a little blink and you'll miss it moment in the game's introductory sequence where one of the characters a big biker called sandman picks up a motorcycle helmet next to the helmet is a stuffed toy of a cat dressed in the same outfit as honey alongside a model of the luna fox a rocket built by tails that features in sonic the fighters note the colours of the little honey plush honey is purple with blonde hair and a blue outfit which matches the secondary colours of the human honey character in the game one of fighting viper's developers masahiro tsugiyama was also responsible for inserting a primitive and barely playable version of sonic and tails into the game too created during his spare time the sonic and tails models inspired sega to go full steam ahead creating a sonic based fighting game which would eventually become sonic the fighters or sonic championship which would release in arcades in 1996. sonic the fighters was originally an arcade exclusive meaning it was a pretty obscure game back in the 90s that few had the opportunity to play it was mildly popular in japan and was praised for its cartoony style by american publications who had the chance to play it the game had a colorful and vibrant cast of characters both old and new sonic knuckles tails amy knack the weasel espio bean and bark all starred as chaos emerald guardians in the game fighting to determine who was the worthiest fighter to go and take on dr eggman yes if you kept count there are eight guardians in the game and thus eight chaos emeralds in the game too at face value there's seemingly no sign of honey the cat in the arcade version of the game a sega saturn port of sonic the fighters was planned and certain individuals have claimed an early saturn port was showcased in a private screening at e3 1996 but the saturn port never materialized according to sonic team game planner yojiro ogawa sega felt it was difficult to reproduce the arcade quality of the game on saturn hardware thus the port never saw the light of day it wasn't until 2005 that sonic the fighters would enjoy a home console release being one of the games packaged into sonic gems collection for the gamecube and playstation 2. finally this obscure gem of the game was widely playable for sonic fans it was after this release that the folks over at the now defunct website sonic cult discovered an extra hidden character in the code for sonic the fighters this sonic gems collection only contained a hint of said character because their model was completely removed even via hacking it wasn't possible to play as this newly discovered character without risk of crashing the game completely unless the character was loaded with a different character's model after this discovery hackers had to return to the original source material and found the same secret character with model and all hidden away in the arcade versions code and thus in about 2006 honey the cat was unearthed and playable for the first time thanks entirely to fan enthusiasm and the folks over at sonic cult this original unearthed iteration of honey the cat was a little bit buggy though to say the least for starters when honey was first found and documented she was lacking her long hair and tail an issue related to arcade emulators at the time that was later resolved honey also suffered from a semi-permanent massive eye glitch the game's files reveal the sizeable array of different eyes for honey but the coding for honey's eyes isn't in place to handle all of the different eyeball transitions meaning one of honey's eyes is permanently facing the game camera while the other is facing the exact opposite direction which looks a bit unnerving honey also doesn't have a completely original move set with a lot of her moves being nicked from other characters it looks like honey was based primarily off amy their stances are similar and honey's body actually transforms into amy's when she's crushed by amy's pico pico hammer attack finally honey doesn't have a versus screen portrait either it seems to default to dr eggman on the verses screen honey's name also doesn't appear instead you'll see a collection of question marks but this actually seems kind of intentional like honey was originally going to be a secret character that challenged the player at some point in time now when you're playing through arcade mode in sonic the fighters you can face off against the character that you actually chose in this scenario dr eggman will create a greyscale clone of yourself that you have to fight what's really interesting is that honey's clone isn't greyscale but instead her colour scheme matches the honey the cat plush that we saw in the fighting vipers intro with the blonde hair and blue armor exactly when in development honey was dropped and for what reason is unknown she is evidently unfinished but an interview with hiroshi kataoka former head of sega am2 from 2006 offers a little bit of insight kataoka suggests that honey's character designer may have slipped the character in there it sounds like honey the cat was originally going to be a little secret way of acknowledging that fighting vipers was the predecessor to sonic the fighters what's really interesting about this interview is that hiroshi doesn't seem that familiar with the honey the cat character at all it really makes me wonder if sega would have acknowledged honey the cat on their own if it wasn't for fans digging around and finding this discovery to be honest i doubt it in 2012 an hd re-release of sonic the fighters hit the playstation network and xbox live arcade and this version of the game contains a completely finished and fixed version of honey the cat and all you have to do to unlock honey is hover over amy rose and select amy with the start button instead of the a button simple there is still some level of mystique surrounding honey in this version of the game still her name is still replaced with question marks and her versus screen art is a silhouette so she's still a little bit mysterious it's not that common to see completely scrapped characters be lifted out of the garbage heap and actually grace a game so props to sega for this after 2012 honey also made some cameo appearances in the archie comic books in may 2012 honey made her first archie appearance on the cover of archie's sonic universe issue 40. after fan demand to make her a more permanent character honey was given a bit of a redesign and started appearing semi-frequently starting in 2015. what i like about honey in the archie comics is that the writers stayed true to her in-game origins just like honey from fighting vipers the archie version of honey is a fashion mogul and ceo of honey clothing in what is a bit of an echo of sonic the fighters honey's first major appearance was as a competitor in the chaos emerald championship a fighting tournament hosted by breezy the hedgehog just like honey in fighting vipers honey the cat's primary motivation for entering the tournament was to promote her fashion line she promised to hand over the tournament prize a chaos emerald to the freedom fighters if she won in exchange for them modeling her clothing it turns out that amy rose is actually an avid fan of honeys and amy's outfit is a piece from honey's old dreamcaster line like i said it's a pretty nice nod to honey's origin that honey's first archie story was a sonic the fighter's esque scenario honey is also a pretty competent martial artist she's matched it with tails in round one of the chaos emerald championship and ends up victorious though does use underhanded tactics eliminating tales after distracting him all is fair in love and war says honey it seems she has a bit of a devious streak honey found herself matched up against sonic in the next round she put up a good effort but ended up losing the tournament is ultimately disrupted by robotic intruders arriving to try to steal the chaos emerald they're thwarted but the storyline concludes with honey actually striking a deal with tournament organizer breezy to design costumes for her robotic staff honey confronts breezy pointing out how easy it was for eggman's robots to breach the tournament's security and hinting that breezy might have acted in cahoots with eggman breezy shrugs off the accusation by pointing out how lucrative the tournament was and highlighting honey's own shrewd underhanded behaviour during her matchup with tails this gives honey some food for thought i think she realizes she is only a few steps away from being a bit of a baddie herself honey's other appearances in the comic largely revolved around her trying to snag more clients like trying to strike a deal to become the royal designer for princess sally i believe that honey has yet to appear in the newer idw comic book series which is a shame in fact honey has yet to reappear in a sonic game since 2012 as well i think it's high time honey not only reappeared but became a permanent staple of the sonic series she has such a unique look and the fanbase obviously loves her so what could go wrong the thing is i did tell a bit of a porcupine in this video's introduction sonic the fighters isn't even canon in the sonic the hedgehog universe so technically neither is honey seeing rey and mighty return in sonic mania plus has given me hope that no long forgotten character can ever be entirely written off so here's to hoping and that just about wraps up the story of honey the cat the character that was very nearly forgotten to the sands of time if you enjoyed this video i've got a playlist of more character profiles of people like being the dynamite supersonic and more the playlist is always growing and i'm open to suggestions for future videos if you have a favorite character you'd like me to cover let me know in the comments if you do thanks for watching and hopefully i'll see you next time you

Channel: Johnny Vector

Views: 61,702

Rating: 4.9766383 out of 5

Keywords: honey, honey the cat, honey the cat voice, honey the cat sonic, honey the cat sonic the fighters, honey the cat theme, sonic the fighters, sonic championship, sonic cult, candy the cat, honey fighting vipers, pepsiman fighting vipers, pepsiman fighting vipers unlock, fighting vipers sonic, fighting vipers sonic and tails, sonic gems collection, sonic gems collection music, honey the cat archie, chaos emerald cham

Id: 8_FMGEmVe-I

Length: 15min 46sec (946 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 11 2021