Top 10 Sonic Characters Before & After
Sonic the Hedgehog was created by Sega back In 1991 as the new face of their company.
Back then, Sega’s mascot was Alex Kidd, and the company didn’t think he was a strong
enough character to give Nintendo’s flagship character Mario a run for his money.
Sega went on to develop the blue hedgehog, alongside Doctor Ivo Eggman Robotnik, who
became his arch nemesis.
So you can imagine that the other characters in Sonic’s history have an interesting background
as well.
Which is why we’ve created a list of the top 10 sonic characters before and after.
Let’s jump in!
10 Big the Cat Love him or hate him, Big the Cat does have
an interesting backstory when it comes to his creation.
Sort of.
If you despise the character, like so many Sonic fans do, well, this many led you liking
him even less, if possible.
So, Big the Cat, who first appeared in Sonic Adventure DX, was solely the product of developers
wanting to create a fishing mini game.
To give the fishing rod item a purpose.
Thus begun Big the Cat’s journey to re-acquire Froggy, which many critics see as one of the
strangest gameplay modes in the game.
Since then, the character’s personality hasn’t changed much, but has taken a much
smaller spot in the limelight as a playable character in games like Sonic Heroes and Sonic
& Sega All Stars Racing.
9 EggRobo While EggRobo may not be the first antagonist
to come to mind when you think of Sonic characters, the various EggRobo appearances over the years
have been diverse and interesting, constantly providing a challenge for players.
First appearing in Sonic & Knuckles in 1994, the EggRobo has been a staple in the Sonic
franchise, appearing in the likes of the Sonic Mania Mirage Saloon Zone as a bit of a character-duplicating
magician, known as the Heavy Magician.
It’s become a versatile villain for Sonic to fight against, with multiple variants over
time.
8 Fang the Sniper Fang the Sniper may not be one of the more
well known Sonic characters, but he definitely has changed quite a bit aesthetically from
his early days in Sonic Triple Trouble, aka Sonic and Tails 2 in Japan, as an antagonist
who is after the Chaos Emeralds.
In the game pre-release marketing, Fang was featured with a gun, holding it up to Sonic,
which never appeared in the game itself.
From then on, he’s a minor playable character in games the likes of Sonicc Drift 2 and Sonic
the Fighters.
He also appears in Sonic Mania, in the battle we mentioned in our last number with the Heavy
Magician, where he appears as an illusion for Sonic to battle.
But aside from that, the character has been pretty MIA, partially due to what critics
called ‘lazy characterization’ when he first appeared in Sonic Triple Trouble.
7 Metal Sonic First appearing in the 1993 Sonic CD, Metal
Sonic was created with the intention of fleshing out Sonic’s world more.
Kazuyuki Hoshino was tasked with creating two new characters, one of which was Amy Rose,
and the second, Metal Sonic.
He was privy to the Sega Technical Institute’s desire to introduce a mechanical version of
Sonic, so he took the helm and began crafting the character as an antagonist rather than
an ally, which complimented the idea of Eggman wanted to create a robot adequate of taking
on his nemesis.
From then on out, he’s been a fan favourite, and also has seen many variations over the
years as he became more and more obsessed with becoming the better version of Sonic.
6 Knuckles With the success of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and
Sonic CD, it was only a brief matter of time before Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was put into development.
Sega had an affinity for holding character creation competitions at its Technical Institute,
and there was one held that Takashi Yuda won with his design of a spiny green echidna.
This would later evolve into Knuckles, changing his colour to red in an attempt to make him
stand out more compared to Sonic’s blue and Knuckle’s yellow.
5 Tails Tails was introduced in the follow up to the
hit success of the first game in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in 1992.
Sega specifically wanted a character that would be a companion to Sonic, his archetypical
sidekick, who would be playable in hopes to draw new players to the game.
After running a competition at the Sega Technical Institute for designs, Yasushi Yamaguchi’s
two tailed orange fox was chosen, who he named Miles Prower as a reference to Sonic’s
speed, since it sounded like miles per hour.
Ultimately his name was changed to Tails for simplicity, but rather than ditching the name,
Tails became his nickname.
4 Vector the Crocodile Vector’s first appearance was in 1995 in
the Chaotix game, but he was developed years prior to the games release, back in 1990.
During the conceptual stages of the 1991 Sonic the Hedgehog game, developers at team Sonic
began crafting the world around the Sonic and Dr Eggman characters they had created.
One of the concepts was that Sonic would be part of a band, called Sonic the Hegdehog
Band, and featured Vector.
Ultimately, the idea was abandoned, but Vector would return a few years later, still wearing
his iconic headphones.
3 Amy Rose After the success of the first two Sonic games,
the development for Sonic CD had developers wanting to introduce more characters to the
canon.
This included our previous number, Metal Sonic, but also, a female companion for Sonic.
Amy Rose was inspired from the female characters companion that appeared in the Sonic the Hedgehog
manga, with a new and improved design that ditched her mohawk-styled hair, and gave her
a new outfit.
The character was largely unused in her early days despite being a damsel in distress, but
since has become one of the more important Sonic characters in Sonic’s main circle,
and capable of holding her own with the addition of her piko piko hammer.
2 Robotnik As we mentioned at the start of this video,
Sega was looking to replace it’s mascot Alex Kidd with a character capable of rivalling
Mario and Nintendo.
Two characters were drafted up, one being Sonic, and the other, Doctor Ivo Eggman Robotnik.
While Sonic was ultimately voted as the winner, Sega didn’t want to get rid of the Eggman
design, thinking it still had a lot of potential.
The character was noted to share similarities with US president Theodore Roosevelt, with
pajamas, and was redesigned further, having more of a bee-like persona in terms of his
attacks.
This would change yet again, simplified, ditching the PJs, and giving him a red, black and yellow
colour scheme in order to differentiate him from Sonic.
Since then, Robotnik has received many a transformation, including Sonic 06’s hyper realistic version
of the character, but regardless has retained most of his iconic features since his debut
in the 1991 Sonic the Hedgehog game.
1 Sonic Since sonic’s debut, the character has enjoyed
five generations of console releases, as of this recording.
In 1990, an internal competition was held for the creation of a Sega mascot, as we’ve
mentioned in previous numbers, and led to designs that ranged from a Felix the cat inspired
rabbit, to an American looking bulldog.
But nothing quite struck a note as well as the design for a blue hedgehog, named Mr Needlemouse,
who was aesthetically inspired by the likes of Michael Jackson and Santa Claus, and a
personality inspired by future president Bill Clinton.
After the 1991 games release, Sonic had spawned a trend for anthropomorphic mascots, opening
the door for Crash Bandicoot, Spyro and Sly Cooper, amongst others.
While the character, like Eggman, has always retained his iconic traits, he’s received
many slight aesthetic makeovers, from the way he’s perceived in 3D Sonic games, to
his characterization in the various Sonic animated series, like Sonic the Hedgehog and
Sonic Boom.
There we have it friends!
Want us to do other before and after lists?
Let us know in those comments below!
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We’ve also got a ton of other sonic lists on our top 10 sonic playlist, so head on over
to our channel to check that out too.
In the meantime, I’ve been Kelly Paoli and this has been top 10 gaming.
I’ll catch you all in the next one.