The first 2 Sonic games brought Sega immense
success. The character went in 2 short years from a
conceptual rough sketch to an icon more widely recognized by kids than Mickey Mouse. By the end of 1992, Sega started to maximize
profit from the blue hedgehog, not only from all lucrative licensing deals but also by
starting development of multiple Sonic games for a wide variety of platforms. It was an exciting time for the company prevailing
on the cutting edge of consumer entertainment technology. Sega of Japan had launched their fully 3D
rendered arcade game Virtua Racing, while Sega of America grew exponentially and opened up their hi-tech multimedia studio geared towards the future of entertainment. But no success is without sacrifice. Sonic 2 had been developed by Sega’s first
US based development studio: Sega Technical Institute. One of the core goals was to create a mixed
culture creative work environment where anyone could pitch an original idea for a new game. But Sonic was just too important for Sega
and the continuation of his games was therefore given the highest priority. Many other projects were put on the backburner
and even canceled. Unsatisfied with the trajectory of the studio,
Mark Cerny, head of STI, left in the tail end of 1992. The industry veteran Roger Hector was hired
to fill his shoes. He was already acquainted with Sega from his
days at Disney and, not wanting to stir things up, he stayed true to Mark Cerny’s original
vision as much as he could with the given situation. When Sonic 2 wrapped up, part of the Japanese
staff returned back to Japan. Lead game designer Hirokazu Yasuhara and lead
programmer Yuji Naka remained at STI and set their mind on the follow up. They assembled an all Japanese team and asked
Sega of Japan to send in reinforcements - but being stretched thin themselves Sega could
only spare a few experienced members from their Consumer Division. They were forced to send a number of new recruits
- what they lacked in experience they certainly made up in talent and creativity. Development of Sonic 3 would take place in
a separate section of the building, locked away from the rest via special security passes. This led to some dismay from US graphic artists
who were eager to be continually involved in the franchise. However there would still be some interaction
with other STI employees. For example Yuji Naka consulted technical
programmer Adrian Stevens to help him solve complex math problems. Sonic 2 introduced 2-player gameplay to the
series, the 3rd installment was supposed to move the series into the 3D realm, code named
Sonic 3D. To make this happen they planned to add the
Sega Virtua Processor to the cartridge; a lightning fast chip that was born out of the
desire to port their arcade hit Virtua Racing over to the Mega-Drive. Yuji Naka and art director Kunitake Aoki worked
on tech demos and mock ups featuring a low poly 3d rendered Sonic and isometric gameplay. The results weren’t all satisfying, and
conflicting release schedules and added cost of the SVP chip made it clear that the move
to 3D would be too ambitious. Instead Sonic 3 would keep true to the winning
2D side scrolling formula. They set out to give the hedgehog one final
Mega-Drive outing of epic proportions. Lead gameplay designer Hirokazu Yasuhara and
2 junior game designers came up with interesting set-pieces to give each zone a distinct feel
in terms of gameplay. Inspiration came from the team’s numerous
field trips and activities. Ice Cap, for example, was inspired by the
snow boarding the team did together to blow off some steam. Angel Island was named after an existing location
just off the coast of San Francisco where STI was situated. After working on 2 Sonic games, Yasuhara really
had a good grasp on how to switch up platforming action with highspeed gameplay. The added challenge this time around was to
make the maps work for multiple characters with their own unique abilities. One of the new recruits on the project was
Takashi Iizuka who would eventually become the lead of Sonic Team years later. He was responsible for scenes like the airship
bombardement and the opening cutscene. The game-plan quickly grew and expanded to over 10 huge zones, demanding a massive 24megabit cartridge. The game designers were encouraged to think
big and not restrict their imagination to hardware limitations, determined that a solution
would be found eventually. Angel Island in particular is filled with
interesting set pieces and effects, some required clever planning. The airship, for example, would simply be
too big to draw with sprites, and the lush jungle setting already fully used up the 2
background layers. The designers decided to clear one of the
background layers of all trees during this scene, to make room for the airship artwork. The game program altered the scroll speed
and direction of this background layer midframe making it possible to scroll the ground level
and airship separately. Following up is a chase through the forest. In this scene the sprite layer is used to
add an extra layer of trees to give it more depth. This is just a small demonstration of the
creative problem solving on the project. Each of the 3 main Sonic games had their own
art director or lead designer resulting in a slightly different art style per game. Naoto Oshima infused the look of the original
Sonic with polygonal cgi elements and checkered patterns As a consequence of moving development of
the sequel to the US, Yasushi Yamaguchi took over his role for Sonic 2. Art direction for Sonic 3 was in the capable
hands of Kunitake Aoki, an experienced designer who moved to STI early in 1992. After helping out on a few bits and pieces
on Sonic 2, he was asked to join the Sonic 3 team right from the start. Kunitake Aoki took inspiration from the original
zones but at the same time set out to make Sonic 3 feel more modern. The look of the original Sonic was based on
the clean polygonal 3D graphics from the 80s but since then 3D imagery had advanced considerably. The art-style for Sonic 3 would reflect this
by adding texture and simulating more dynamic lighting. The polygonal shapes and checkered patterns
were still used to keep in line with the established look. The majority of pixel art was drawn the traditional
way, pixel by pixel on Sega’s Digitizer systems but 3D software was starting to become
a powerful tool. Various bits and pieces in Sonic 3 were created
using tools on Amiga, Mac and most notably SoftImage Creative Environment, running on
high-end SGI systems. This 3D animation package was designed for
character animation and used on movies like Jurassic Park. Takashi Yuda was the main animator on the
project and reworked Sonic’s sprites to give him a 3D touch, this became a testament
of the projects’ 3D roots. He already showcased his animation and art
skills on acclaimed titles like, Castle of Illusion and Quackshot as well as his first
assigned project Revenge of Shinobi. One of the biggest challenges for the art
team was to come up with a fitting design for a new character. A doodle of dreadlocks by ‘enemy artist’
Yokokawa sparked the team’s imagination, and after countless meetings and sketches,
Knuckles the Echidna was born. The character was given fashionable shoes
with a Rastafarian color scheme and powerful spiked knuckles which would allow him to dig. The design stemmed from the desire to make
him contrast Sonic. For example his white crescent on his chest
symbolized the moon while Sonic's round belly the sun. The symbol also embodies strength as the forceful
Moon Bears have the same marking on their chest. Knuckles was appointed the guardian of Angel
island and its Master Emerald. A fiendish plot by Robotnik made him believe
Sonic was after this powerful emerald. In the new cutscenes Knuckles would hinder
our heroes. They telegraphed his personality as well as
creating a nice scene transition. The special stage of the Sonic games had quickly
gained a reputation of displaying stellar effects that were seemingly impossible on
Mega-Drive hardware. The development team once again setout to
make a graphical feast, yet at the same time make it fun to play. Yuji Naka came up with the idea of a small
planet to run across after watching Dragon Ball. To realize this effect they made a carefully
constructed still image and changed its colors in a constant loop to give the illusion of
movement. Each square of the checkered sphere is split
up in multiple lines. Each line links to a different color entry
in the pallete. So when you offset all colors inside the palette
by 1 it results in a 1 pixel shift of the checkered pattern. This clever illusion essentially makes 16
frames out of 1 still image and thus didn’t require much memory and cpu power, leaving
more resources to calculate the location of the smaller spheres. Only when Sonic changes direction, a small
series of animated tiles are required. Thanks to the overwhelming success of Sonic
2sday, Sega wanted to keep the tradition of a holiday season release for their Sonic games. During the annual planning meeting of Sega
of America at the start of 93 it already became clear that the project was behind schedule,
meaning no new Sonic game for the holidays. Soon after, management came with a fitting
solution: a smaller spin-off game inspired by the well received Casino Night Zone of
Sonic 2. One of the most promising game designers at
STI: Peter Morawiec took up the challenge. Together with designer Kurt Peterson, he knocked
out an animated demo with a large emphasis on pinball in mere days. The concept was quickly approved and production
began at the start of spring and would have to wrap up roughly 5 months later. There were not enough resources at STI to
program the game in such a short timespan. Roger Hector decided to outsource programming
and technical management. He turned to 2 long time friends with their
own development company called Polygames. They set up the code for Spinball in a modular
way that allowed programmers of STI to help out, tackling different sections of the game. All artwork and game design would still be
produced by talent at STI who were not involved in Sonic 3. In order to hit the tight deadline, the bulk
of the code was written in the higher level programming language C. It’s easier to read
and manage but the trade-off was less efficient machine code, resulting in a lower frame rate. Sonic Spinball would buy the Sonic 3 project
more time but the next management challenge hit shortly after. Sega of America had made a huge promotional
deal with McDonald's to coincide with the release of the game, but the ever growing
concept for Sonic 3 resulted in it slipping behind schedule. The game would not be ready until summer of
94, which would mean completely missing the promotion which was planned for February of
94. A solution to this problem came from an employee
at Sega of America who brought up the idea of a lock-on cartridge. He had seen this in action a few years prior
on a small scale, allowing programmers to add new characters to an existing game. This technology made it possible to hit the
deadline and release the unfinished content down the line. From that moment on, the project was split
up. Sonic 3A would be the first half of the game,
Sonic3B would encompass the remaining levels and Sonic3C was supposed to be the full experience. They knew that Knuckles was a big new selling
point and was therefore reserved for Sonic3B. His involvement in the first game would be
kept to a minimum. To compensate, Sonic3A would feature an elaborate
time-trial mode. The split-up was a big relief for the development
team. Sonic3A was allocated a sizable 16 megabit
cartridge, meaning there was much more memory available to cram the pre-rendered title screen
in the game and keep adding more detailed graphics. The huge number of zones of the complete project
would call for a comprehensive score. The first 2 Sonic games had been composed
by Nakamura of the band Dreams Come True who had become so successful that royalties were
starting to become a problem. Sega turned to its own Sound team and Cube
Corp in Japan consisting of almost a dozen talented musicians. A new yet familiar face would also be added
to team. Michael Jackson and Sega were already acquainted:
he owned a number of their arcade cabinets and was hands-on involved in the production
of his own video game, MoonWalker, 3 years prior. He helped to design the gameplay, with Al
Nilson from Sega of America serving as a intermediary. Development of the game took place at Sega
of Japan. At the end of development, Yuji Naka was already
working on the engine for the first Sonic game while his colleagues next to him were
finishing up Moonwalker. Many staff members on the Moonwalker project
would be involved in the Sonic franchise. For example Hiroshi Kubota who masterfully
adapted Michael’s songs for the Mega-Drive would arrange and program Nakamura’s songs
for Sonic 1 & 2. . Pixel artists Jena Ishiwatari would draw
scene art for Sonic 1. It’s no secret that Sonic team was a big
fan of Michael Jackson, and Jackson himself was a huge Sonic fan. So the possibility that the two would meet
again was no coincidence. In the spring of ‘93 during a break from
his “Dangerous” Tour, Michael met with the team at STI and shared his interest in
composing music for the mascot. Afterwards he phoned keyboardist Brad Buxer,
whom he had collaborated with on Dangerous, to help on the project. Together they sat down and composed a number
of tracks with the help of 4 other musicians and engineers. Composer C. Cirocco Jones recalls spending
countless hours on the project making their songs suit Sonic team’s needs. Sonic 3 was not the only planned collaboration
between Sega and Michael Jackson. The VR amusement park ride Scramble Training
was already in production and the popstar would be involved in productions from Sega’s
new Multimedia studio. In the summer of 93 disaster struck, rumors
of child abuse hit the media and the witch hunt began. Michael Jackson abandoned the sonic 3 project and continued his hectic tour
schedule for the rest of the year. During this final leg of the Dangerous tour,
Michael and Brad Buxer used one of the melodies they wrote for Sonic 3 to form the basis of
the hit single Stranger in Moscow. Sega decide to silently step away from the
turmoil around the popstar. Zones that originally featured Michael’s
music like Marble Garden were re-composed by Sega’s own sound team. It is not unlikely that they were inspired
by the work done by MJ and his team and so they would still influence the final score
and give it a unique flavor. In the end the bulk of score would be delivered
by Sega’s own team but traces of the collaboration still ended up in the final game. Most notable is the theme for Ice Cap zone
which clearly resembles the unreleased 80s track Hard Times from Brad Buxer’s New Wave
band The Jetzons. Sonic 3 would not be the end of the partnership
between Sega and Michael Jackson. Years later he would popup again in the Sega
Dreamcast game Space Channel 5 per his request. The other members in his team were less satisfied
leading to a tense situation decades later. After this hectic period for the project,
Christmas 93 rolled around and would turn out to be a Sonic filled holiday. November 23rd was dubbed Sonic Mania Day and put the spotlight on 3 new Sonic titles: Sonic Spinball, Sonic CD and Sonic Chaos. All marketing and communication in 1993 concerning
the hedgehog was focused on these 3 titles. Sonic Spinball could ride on the strong brand
reputation and managed to sell over a million copies. Thanks to the mega hit Aladdin and players
favoring the uncensored Mortal Kombat for the Mega-Drive, it would become the 3rd strong
holiday season in a row for Sega. All details concerning Sonic 3 were kept under
wraps for the whole of ‘93. Just months before its release, Sega started
to share information and beta roms. Gaming press previewed the game extensively
in their January and February issues of 94. Development of Sonic 3A wrapped up late 1993
and would simply be branded as Sonic 3. The first batch of cartridges arrived in US
store shelves on the 2nd of February, just in time for promotional tie-ins and local
festivities of Groundhog day, dubbed Hedgehog Day. The PAL release followed a few weeks later
with various local events and promotions. Nobody outside Sega knew that it was only
half the game that was originally envisioned. Thanks to the 6 jam packed zones accompanied
by an elaborate time trial and 2 player mode, the game left a satisfying impression on players
and press alike. All content combined would still require a
16-megabit cartridge, twice as much as Sonic 2. The cartridge would also be packed with a
Fe-Ram chip that saved your progress and recorded your best efforts in time-trial mode without
an additional battery. Sega already revealed that there would be
extra content down the line and even hinted at a possible lock-on feature that would be
compatible with Sonic 1 and 2. It was seen as a positive bonus by the press,
unaware that it would actually be content cut from the original game. After experiencing a successful launch of
the first chapter the team went back to work on the remaining content. The bulk of the levels were already conceptualized
and even fully scored. Flying Battery zone in particular was far
in development, as it was originally intended to take part in the first act, situated between
Carnival Night and Icecap zone. In a transition scene Sonic would hold on
to debris from the air ship and use it as a snowboard to safely slide down the hill
of Icecap zone. Somewhere after the split-up it was decided
to move the zone to the second act. Sonic 3 had not yet been released in the east,
it was the intent to release the full game to the Japanese market as a single cartridge. All the new game code and assets would therefore
be build on-top of the already existing Sonic3 project code. There were even minor tweaks done to the level
layouts and code of Sonic 3. At the start of spring of 1994, the 6 new
zones were nearing their final form. An extra final zone called Doomsday and the
bonus stages were completed the next month. Pirated versions of Sonic 3 were popping up
in eastern markets leaving Sega no choice than to release the regular Sonic 3 cartridge
in May of 1994 in the east. Meanwhile the Sonic 3B project was rebranded
to Sonic & Knuckles and would be marketed as a standalone game with lock-on features
instead of just an expansion for Sonic 3. Releasing the game as a standalone title meant
that extra content was needed, for example an intro and title screen. Kunitake Aoki would again be responsible for
the title screen and had to finish this in just 2 weeks. Inhouse musician Howard Drossin composed some
remaining bits and pieces like the opening and ending tune as well as Knuckles’ theme. By the start of June the game was pretty much
complete and focus shifted to implementing the final lock-on functionalities. When booted up, the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge
checks if there’s a game attached to it. Depending on the serial-number it runs different
operations through switch circuitry inside the cartridge. If Sonic 3 is attached, the cartridge runs
the Sonic 3 & Knuckles game code. This is the 13 zone spanning complete adventure
as it was originally intended with all 3 playable characters available from the start. The game program uses the new Sonic 3 level
maps but loads most graphical assets of the first 6 zones from the Sonic 3 cartridge. A new addition that was not in the original
design documents are 7 hyper emeralds to collect. When all 14 emeralds are collected Sonic can
transform into the all powerful Hyper Sonic, empowered with a double jump and screen-clearing
move. To add even more play features, the dev team
tested if they could breathe new life into Sonic 2 by making Knuckles a playable character. It turned to be relatively simple as the levels
were already designed with the semi flying Super Sonic in mind. But still some minor tweaks were necessary
to the level layout data to accommodate Knuckles and his climbing ability. A new build of the Sonic 2 game code was stored
on an extra separate rom chip inside the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge. The Knuckles sprite data was also stored inside
this ROM, all other assets were loaded from the original Sonic 2 cartridge. There wasn’t enough time and budget to give
Sonic 1 the same treatment. The developers came up with a nice alternative
that would even be compatible with nearly the full library of Mega-Drive games. Each cartridge unlocks an extra Blue Sphere
mini game level. The mini game was programmed in a way that
the layouts could be procedurally generated, while the serial-number of the locked on cartridge
was used as a key to generate a specific pattern. With Sonic 1 attached, the player gains access
to an almost unlimited amount of Blue Sphere mini games. In the summer of ‘94, the almost 2 year
long development cycle of the whole project finally came to an end. Sonic & Knuckles was released worldwide in
October of 1994. Like Sonic 3, it sold close to 2 million copies,
which wasn’t as much as the mega success of Sonic 2, but still worthy for a place in
the top 10 best sellers for the system. In a perfect world, Sonic 3 & Knuckles would
have been released as one game, on schedule and at normal retail price. The reality of the situation is that hardly
any development environment is perfect; there’s usually some struggle between various departments
fighting for their own cause as well as outside influences impacting a project. The lock-on cartridge was a creative solution
to a problem and was backed-up by the drive of the developers to add as much value to
both games as they could. The Sonic brand was still strong enough to
pull off this trick and leave the fans feeling satisfied with their purchase. It had been an exhilarating road to success
for Sega for 3 years, but turmoil from inside started to grow. STI would still be able to release two original
games in the spirit of their company: Comix Zone and The Ooze. In ‘95 it stopped being a separate entity
and was merged with the other US based development studios of Sega. The free creative spirit was unfortunately
lost as it became more structured and corporate-oriented. Yuji Naka and Hirokazu Yasuhara both left
STI shortly after the Sonic & Knuckles project and went their separate ways working on vastly
different franchises. They continued to inspire and even teach future
generations of game developers. As for Sonic and Sega, their fairytale story
to unmatched fame and success had come to an end. Their rise to the top would became one of
the most memorable stories in gaming history. Although their fame would never hit that highpoint
again, their products both old and new would still bring joy to a new generation of players.
This channel is great. They only make about one video a month, but that's because their production values are absurdly high. I've seen plenty of TV documentaries that aren't as well-produced.
TIL that sonic 3 was basically upgradable.. I grew up nintendo, my neighbour was sega.. Its so much fun to learn about the differences, tricks and oneupmans ship Nin and Seg had.. I have to hand it that Sega really did well.. it seems its self implosion was the key to its ultimate undoing, otherwise, it just seems like a titan/powerhouse that would have gone on fighting Nin for ages.