If there’s one long-lost game that fans are itching to have a chance to officially play, it’s 1993’s SEGASonic the Hedgehog. Well, according to a recent interview, SEGA might consider reviving the title as part of a future SEGA AGES lineup.
While it was made clear that no more Sonic the Hedgehog are currently being worked on for the M2-developed retro revival series, SEGA’s Yosuke Okunari – who has produced and supervised a number of SEGA AGES titles – name-checked SEGASonic the Hedgehog as an interesting candidate for a future release.
Asked whether titles such as Sonic 3, Sonic & Knuckles or SEGASonic the Hedgehog would ever be included in SEGA AGES, Okunari said that there wasn’t any set plans, but if the current run of AGES titles are determined to be a success, it’s something the team would consider.
“When we began work on SEGA Ages for the Nintendo Switch, the amount of titles in development were limited, so we decided on a lineup that consisted of the first two entries in the Puyo Puyo and Sonic series,” Okunari told Japanese site Game Watch.
“If this collection of SEGA Ages titles is successful, then I’d say we’d really like to consider releasing more in those series. The arcade game, SegaSonic the Hedgehog, has never been ported before…”
An official release of SEGASonic the Hedgehog would be an incredible curio for Sonic and general SEGA fans alike. Released in a limited state in Japan back in 1993, this wacky isometric arcade oddity never got past the test phase, and in the West, it was never officially released. A couple of enterprising arcade owners imported the cabinet to the US, but besides that your chances of seeing this game in the wild was close to zero.
Of course, this can only happen if people support SEGA AGES. It sounds like, if this initial wave is successful, M2 and SEGA aim to be pretty ambitious with the next slate of titles – remember when they said they’d be down for working on Dreamcast-released games? Here’s to keeping the dream alive!
Source: Game Watch [via NintendoEverything]
But how can that be accomplish without a trackball? They should hook up with Arcade 1-UP since they have ported Golden Tee to their line up and that uses a trackball.
Also how can we support M2 when they completely lied about Sonic 2? They went out of their way to hype Sonic 2 with Hidden Palace Zone and other deleted levels and to come up short by not even including the Mega Tech/Play version of Sonic 2. As much as I love Sonic 2 but if you’re going to lie about bringing new stuff to the game then don’t bother wasting the consumers time by having them buy something they already have. The sole reason I bought Sonic 1 was for the Mega Tech/Play version since we never got that here in America.
I actually got the board for this game years ago, with the intention of bringing it to Sonic conventions. But then I couldn’t find anyone to to stick it in a super gun and make it playable. >_>
When it’s safe to travel again, take a trip to Illinois, an arcade in Brookfield has it up and running
I used to play this in an arcade in London Harrow in the 90’s. I always found it hard as a kid lol i would be keen to see it finally being ported and to play it again.
I say that they should go ahead and release it for Sega Ages. It introduced Mighty and Ray to the franchise, and newcomers who have Sonic Mania Plus are probably wondering where they came from.
I’d be down for SEGASonic the hedgehog and/or Sonic CD for Switch.
I bet if they translate the voices with Roger Craig Smith and Mike Pollock as Sonic and Eggman respectively, who would be a good pic for Mighty and Ray.
I wait until they release more Dreamcast games in the Sega Ages line…