Have you ever wondered why Sonic the Hedgehog’s design changes so frequently?
At present, there have been four distinct different incarnations of Sonic: there’s
Classic Sonic, Modern Sonic, Boom Sonic, and of course, Movie Sonic.
This is to say nothing of all the times the character’s design has been tweaked slightly
over the years.
Or the time he was a werewolf.
Or the time he was Link from the Legend of Zelda.
Change and evolution has always been baked into the character of Sonic, and there’s
never been a consistent formula for his games.
Sega has always been willing to let each new creative team bring their own personal sense
of style to the famous hedgehog.
Here’s an excerpt from a 2016 Polygon interview with Bob Rafei, who was largely responsible
for the Sonic Boom redesign of the character: "If you stay the same, I believe you stagnate,
and that's a slow death," Rafei says.
He calls Sega "brave" and explains that he admires its willingness to change and evolve
its "grandfather character," something we may not see from a company like Nintendo,
who has "stayed true to the Italian plumber formula."
Certainly it’s always been true that Sega has played things fast and loose with Sonic’s
design, as well as his world, and even the tone and themes of his stories.
Right from the start, this was apparent in the way that Sega of America and Sega of Japan
fought over how the character should be drawn.
Because the character’s original design and backstory felt too Japanese, Sega of America’s
Madeline Schroeder, the self-described Mother of Sonic, took it upon herself to “soften”
the company’s new mascot, removing his fangs and ditching his blonde human girlfriend,
Madonna.
Speaking of animosity between the Western and Eastern branches of the company, former
Sega of America CEO Tom Kalinske said: “[I] think [Sega of Japan] resented the
fact that we changed him from being aggressive, and having fangs and [a] very sharp personality
— and to some degree a menacing personality — to being soft and friendly.
I think they resented that.”
Even within the West, several versions of Sonic were developed simultaneously.
Children’s cartoon company Dic created two animated shows featuring Sega’s mascot at
the same time.
One, The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, was a wacky, slapstick, Looney Tunes style
affair.
The other show, Sonic the Hedgehog, referred to by fans as Sat AM, was instead set in a
dark, dystopian nightmare, envisioning Sonic and his friends as freedom fighters pushing
back against a robot apocalypse.
So even Sonic fans within America were split by which version of the character they enjoyed,
right from the start.
Meanwhile, in Britain, we had Sonic the Comic, which was written and drawn by comic creators
who also worked for 2000AD on books like Judge Dredd – and it shows.
In no other media has Super Sonic been portrayed as a homicidal supervillain.
Thus, in the Nineties alone, there were at least four wholly different incarnations of
Sonic the Hedgehog circulating among different audiences.
There was debate, internally, between artists at this point, as to how Sonic should be drawn.
American artists often drew Sonic with a Mohawk of three spikes in a single straight line,
while Japan preferred five spikes spread out across Sonic’s head.
Similarly, should Sonic have buckles on his shoes?
It all depends on which artist you asked.
Then, in 1999, for the release of Sonic Adventure, the character got his first major redesign.
His limbs got longer and he gained green eyes.
According to one artist, Yuji Uekawa, who worked on the redesign:
“On the artwork side, we added strength and weakness to the lines, giving him a more
bold presence while still remaining cartoon-like, and we changed his posing to be more dynamic,
emphasizing his movement when compared to the previous designs.”
At the time, this redesign was not universally popular, even among Sega.
Al Nilsen, former Sega of America employee, took a dim view of changes made to the new
Sonic.
He said: “When [former employees of Sega of America]
would go to E3 and see what was happening ... a lot of times we would just go and we
would shake our heads.
And we were very, very sad.
Because, you know, what we had established and what we had built was something that was
very, very special.”
It’s hardly surprising, considering how many different versions of Sonic have existed
over the years, that fans are always sceptical when the character receives yet another redesign.
Considering that, right from the start, Sega was already having difficulty deciding on
a single design for the character, it makes sense that the company is still so lax at
maintaining a consistent look for their mascot.
But while this has often led to more than a few missteps over the years, it’s also
produced some wonderful benefits for the Sonic fan community as a whole.
Sega is typically more accepting and encouraging of Sonic fan games and fan art than certain
other rivals which will remain nameless.
Sega has also been far less likely to claim copyright infringement on YouTube videos,
although there have been exceptions.
Then, there’s the social media team behind Sonic, led by fan community icon Aaron Webber.
Sonic’s official online presence, perhaps more so than any other video game series,
is defined by listening to fans and engaging in discussion around both the high and low
points of games past.
Speaking of his team’s approach to interacting with fans, Webber stated:
“So look at Sonic in the state that it’s in.
You’ve got some really good Sonic games out there and you’ve also got some games
that obviously weren’t as great.
So how do you sort of take that brand and make it fun.
For me, making Sonic really exciting and funny and irreverent, was the right direction.
So I said alright, let’s embrace these weird elements of the Sonic fanbase.”
This kind of open, inviting, self-aware interaction with fans is only possible because Sega doesn’t
take Sonic too seriously.
The culture of discussion that’s grown around these games has directly led to an environment
where fans can make their voices heard, to the point that even large movie studios have
to listen and change their plans when the internet is unimpressed with their work.
Sonic has always been evolving, changing, at successive generations of developers, animators,
and artists attempt to reinvent the character.
This hasn’t always gone well, but every version of this princess kissing, sword-wielding,
guitar-playing werehog has been a spectacle worth seeing.
Why would Sonic’s design ever stay static?
He’s got to go fast!