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The greatest Sonic game we never got to play

A brilliant 3D Sonic game? On the Saturn? It very nearly happened. We talk to one of the designers of the one that got away

Words: David Houghton, GamesRadar UK

A 16-bit platform game icon reinvented in a multi-gravitational 3D world. Spherical stage effects with an vast sense of scale and gallons of design innovation. A game which simultaneously pushed the series into the future and distilled everything that was great about its history. Super Mario Galaxy? No, Sonic did all that stuff first. Ten years before the Wii was even launched in fact. So why did the plumber get all the glory? Simple. Sonic’s game was never released.

It’s a “What if…” situation on a par with the dinosaurs not becoming extinct. Sonic games these days are the biggest joke in the gaming community, and 90% of the blame for their pariahship is rightly levelled at the miserable attempts to transfer the hedgehog into the third dimension. And Sega are well and truly out of the hardware business, having careened down a slippery financial slope ever since the Saturn failed to follow the success of the Mega Drive.

But a good 3D Sonic game? On the Saturn? Oh, how different things could have been. How beautifully, beautifully different. So what went wrong?

Well a hell of a lot went wrong. The story is one of the most turbulent and dramatic in Sega history, as well as one of the least-known. It’s a tale of political machinations, strained relationships, inhuman working conditions and a game that very nearly killed one of its developers. Interested in reading the full, gory story? Then click on, and we’ll recount to you the tragic fable of Sonic X-treme, the game that probably would have been Sega's Super Mario 64.

 
7 Comments
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Stuffgamer1  - 3 months 15 days ago 
Interesting article. I first heard of Sonic X-treme in Nintendo Power a couple months ago, and it keeps coming back ever since (especially on this site).

Even so, I must say that I don't like the looks of this game AT ALL! No disrespect to the people who worked their butts off to make this thing, but to me, it looks HORRIBLE! Navigation appears to be the absolute worst the series has ever encountered, and the 3D control looks even clunkier than some modern versions. Again, I stress that I don't want to devalue anybody's work, insult anyone, or anything like that, but this is my honest opinion on the matter.

I feel that all in all, Sonic should have never left 2D, period. But since he did (and I'm sure I'm going to be flamed for this one), I say that Sonic Unleashed is one of the best of the bunch. The night levels get a level of bashing they DO NOT deserve, and everybody can more or less agree that the day levels are awesome (any cheap deaths are caused by problems the series has had since game 1).

I'm not even a die-hard Sonic fanboy (grew up with Nintendo, and bought a Genesis on Ebay a few years ago), but I still think it's horrible how he's constantly attacked and ridiculed, when his games aren't even half as bad as people say (barring Sonic the Hedgehog 2006, whose demo I couldn't stand, and whose story looked NAUSEATING based on things I've seen on this site).

Sonic as a series deserves a good deal more respect than it's given lately (and Sonic IS better than real hedgehogs, thank you very much!). As with most things in this world, he's bashed so much that it's literally IMPOSSIBLE for his stuff to be as bad as people say.

Well, that's my crazy-butt long rant. I do ask that people don't go about flaming me TOO much. All I did is tell the truth, and a lot of you know it. Dozens of games have problems as bad as Sonic titles and worse every year, but his get the most negative talk, and for no good reason whatsoever.
NeoKef  - 3 months 3 days ago 
To the guy above me, keep in mind those vids are demos. With further editing, detail, and better movement controls the game would have been different.
OneWithWaves  - 3 months 3 days ago 
Ugh. Bernie Stolar. The world would have been a better place without you. "Saturn is not in our future"?! STOLAR is not in our future. Had this guy not been in SEGA at the time people would probably be playing SEGA's newest console and Sonic would get the respect he had back in the Genesis days. (Genesis was the USA's Mega Drive for those of you across the pond)
minimaxi  - 3 months 1 day ago 
Tragic. But I do find the fish-eye world a bit disorienting, but it certainly shows flavor, and a glimmer of hope for Saturn.
Magic_OF_Mayhem  - 2 months 29 days ago 
What a missed oppurtunity. Things would be different fo Sega, we would be playing the Dreamcast 2 and the Sonic and Mario would still be well and alive in school playgrounds.
Although I tuned out after the (in my opinion) great Sonic Adventure game for the dreamcast, I never really did like Sonic after he became "edgey" and everyone of his games had to be stuffed with obnoxiously cute characters( We're paying for a Sonic game, not a Cream the rabbit game!). Eventually though, I hope Sega will find a good game for Sonic.
AuthorityFigure  - 2 months 7 days ago 
That software looks truly progessive. What a damn shame.
Monkeylink  - 1 month 26 days ago 
ahhhh I remember the 2-d Sonic ahhhh those were the good days
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