The many 'what if' scenarios that revolve around the Sonic the hedgehog franchise astound me, but one scenario I've always been drawn to is what the Sonic franchise might of been, had Sega of America not interfered with Sonic's original design and concept.
For those who don't know the story behind it, during Sonic's inception, the character was originally designed to appeal more to a Japanese audience than he was a western one. The character was really cartoony and anime-like. He had a human girlfriend called Madonna who was very similar to Mario's Pauline from the original Donkey Kong games. He was going to be a star in a rock-band alongside Vector the crocodile. Almost a similar concept to what was later used in the opening title credits of the 90's platformer, Chuck Rock and at one point, Sonic even had fangs if you could believe it.
Anyway, it was Sega of America's decision that all of this had to be changed if Sonic was ever going to appeal to a western audience and they redesigned the character, making him taller, a darker shade of blue, throwing out the old backstory and giving him a newer one. Sega of Japan were furious by the changes and the CEO even got violent and literally kicked his chair before storming out of the meeting, but later came to realise that they clearly didn't understand the western market as well as Sega of America did and accepted the changes.
I'd vouch that those changes definately worked in Sonic's favour as I frankly couldn't see the original Mr. Needlemouse ever catching on in the west, but I often can't help but wonder what the series would've been like, had those changes never happened.
And in this piece I also ask the question, what if instead of Tails, Shadow was brought into the series much, much earlier as Sonic's darker, anti-twin brother of sorts?
Instead of Sonic having a sidekick with Tails the series would revolve around him having a darker rival of a brother out of Shadow.
Can you just imagine what the merchandise could of been like? The saturday morning cartoons? The McDonalds toys? That would of been interesting to see.
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12 years, 5 months ago
29 Apr 2014 14:15 CEST
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