We love April Fools Day, we do. At The Sonic Stadium, it’s an annual tradition – we’re the original pranksters in the community after all. It’s nice to kick back and have a little fun from time to time. And it looks like a whole bunch of Sonic sources have joined in on the act this year too, so let us bring you a selection of April Fools jokes that happened in 2017. Starting with the king, of course…
The Sonic Stadium
In case you missed our rather rambunctious AFD gag for 2017, you can read all about it here. We crafted a story about SEGA announcing Big the Cat as a playable character in Sonic Mania, after a ‘TSS investigation’ found that the developers wanted to build a cross-promotion with the fan-made Big’s Big Fishing Adventure 3 game.
Big’s Big Fishing Adventure 3
Speaking of Big’s Big Fishing Adventure 3, the group behind the humourous fangame ‘revealed’ that Charmy Bee would be getting a special playable chapter called ‘Case of the Stolen Honey’. [ Link ]
OverClocked Remix
The remix-masters over at OCR took the opportunity to release a brand new collab album on April 1, dedicated solely to the one who doesn’t chuckle and would rather flex his muscles. It’s an… odd release, but then what isn’t odd on April Fools Day? We covered this release in a separate post, which you can read (and get links to download) right here.
The Sonic Show
Our good friends at The Sonic Show whipped up a rather intriguing surprise for AFD. Watch the video above for a special ‘Sonic Team Reacts’ to the latest gameplay footage of Sonic Forces. Very thought provoking. Which reaction did you agree with the most?
TSSZ News
The artist traditionally known as The Super Sonic Zone went a little bit doolally on April 1, offering not one but eight fake news stories ranging from Mike Pollock voicing every game character on Earth [ Link ] to Live & Learn becoming the official anthem for the games industry [ Link ] and even the ‘news’ that Tails is dead [ Link ]. Donnie in Maximum Overdrive!
Sonic Retro
Sonic Retro’s team developed a rather convincing fake news story around a Nintendo Switch re-release of brilliant-but-hard-as-balls-drifter Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed [ Link ]. They’re very keen to point out that the game doesn’t feature Big the Cat, though, which is rather odd. Maybe Retro doesn’t like him… Don’t let our resident BIGNEWS and BigFeed editor catch wind of that…
SEGABits
… or should we say, the editor of SEGABits as well? For their AFD prank this year, the SEGA fansite became a home for the plucky cat, with a ‘HIT’ message and the ‘Fish Hits’ music (from Sonic Adventure) playing once the site loaded. It’s probably gone now, to ensure its regular readers don’t lose their minds, but here’s a link to the homepage where it sat anyway. [ Link ]
Spindash.de
Our friends in Germany, running Spindash.de, pulled off this really cool April Fools Day gag in which they reported that the Sonic Underground gang will form a ‘third’ pillar of gameplay in the upcoming Sonic Forces. Sonic, Sonia and Manic would join up with Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic and engage in a ‘Guitar Hero’ style of play to help take down Eggman. The story features this really cool picture above. [ Link ]
Tails Channel
The Man they call Mannheimer, owner of YouTube portal Tails Channel, got a little emotional during this year’s April Fools Day. So much so, that he burst into song. Here he is, singing My Destiny from Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). RIP, my heart.
The Sega Scourge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz_2U2MsF6o
YouTuber SEGA Scourge published a new video for April 1 as part of his Sonic Theorist series… but what’s all this about Shadow and Christianity? Judging by the sublime editing of this episode, we’re pretty sure that the philosophy at play here isn’t altogether serious. But then, you never can tell when it comes to the Old Testament. Plus it’s Easter soon, so…
Sonic News Network
The Sonic News Channel transformed for the day into a tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy site called ‘Sonic Truth Wars’, no doubt operated by a fat, balding, crazy middle-aged guy who likes ranting and raving on camera at every opportunity (Eggman?). It promised to expose the hidden truth and find the answers behind the “corrupt Sonic media elite.” I hope they didn’t find out about our Jaffa Cake addiction…
SEGA Japan
The T-Shirt Takashi Iizuka Doesn’t Want You To Buy is now available to purchase as part of the Official Iizuka-san Fan Club… if you believe the April 1 tweet posted by none other than SEGA Japan’s Sonic the Hedgehog Twitter account. And here we thought it was just SEGA of America that played all the goofy gags. We’re including this because we love having reasons to post an image of both that glorious T-Shirt and of Kazuyuki Hoshino scarfing popcorn. [ Link ]
Anything cool that we missed? Share your favourite Sonic-related AFD 2017 gags in the comments section below.
This is why I don’t believe anything I read on April 1st!
See, there’s one problem about all of this. This is all obnoxious, tired, stale and utter, utter, UTTER sh*t.
Much like every April Fools Day, really. Seriously, though. Screw your April Fools trash and every other one you do. Princess Elise in Sonic Forces. FFS.
Man lighten up a bit. Everyone was just having a little fun. I personally look forward to the stuff they do on April Fools day.
The dude’s allowed to have a opinion, even if it’s a negative one. I kind of agree with him being tured of the obnoxious stale jokes because, expect for one or two of these entries, the jokes revolved around obnoxious stale jokes that people would probably make any day of the year.
I mean, you’re allowed to be sullen and grumpy about everything, sure. Doesn’t mean others can’t call you out on it. For a community about a cartoon hedgehog, everyone seems really keen to be super-serious and edgy!
Sometimes you get too used to it – the community being super-serious and edgy part.
It honestly feels kinda weird.
Someone needs a hug.
I’m with Perry/M. I think it’s just gotten way out of hand. Everyone knows what they read on April 1st is a “joke” and you used to just get a one-off article. Now there’s just shitloads of obviously fake stories everywhere. Just tired jokes about ’06 and fake adventure sequels. I don’t know how people can even be arsed to read them.
(Damn I sound grumpy. It’s 6:45am and I’m on the way to the gym. That’s probably why.)