you did you know Sonic Generations was prematurely revealed to the public after a document was leaked by Sega of America in August 2009 the document appeared on Sega of America's official press site and detailed a meeting between Sega and Sony Computer Entertainment America the document described plans for various upcoming games and features including a title simply called sonic anniversary the initial concepts for sonic anniversary included a collector's edition that would gather the best of Sonic for around $99 more information was leaked during a convention in Madrid called game fest in 2010 a staff member of
the website Sonic paradise dotnet spoke with a Sega representative who revealed that Sonic Anniversary was in development for the ps3 PSP DS and Wii with an Xbox 360 release being negotiated the representative also revealed that the game would compile some of the most popular levels from the series and reimagine them for a modern play style the development of Sonic Generations was somewhat influenced by the state of the sonic fanbase in an interview with Destructoid sonic series developer Takashi Iizuka commented on the fractured fanbase he mentioned that some fans preferred the 2d games on the genesis
while other fans preferred the more recent 3d installments because of this when the time came to celebrate the series 20th anniversary the team decided to revive classic Sonic and have him star alongside modern Sonic this way the team could cater to both sides of the fanbase the fans also had another more direct influence on the development of the game to decide which stages would be included the fans were asked to disclose their favorite levels on Facebook in 2009 the poll contained a comprehensive list of levels from the major sonic titles available at the time interestingly
the poll did allow fans to choose levels from Sonic in the secret rings and Sonic and the Black Knight suggesting that these levels were once to have been represented in generations as well in an interview with the Sonic Stadium azúcar revealed that the 3ds port of Generations was intended to be a celebration of Sonic's portable history despite this the game only contained one handheld exclusive level in the form of water Palace from Sonic Rush a downloadable demo for Sonic Generations was released on June 23 2011 which was the 20th anniversary of Sonic ones publication soon
after the demos release its data was mined to reveal many of its assets these assets included head icons for the supporting cast sparking speculation that other characters may be playable in an interview with Sega bits sonic brand manager Aaron Weber expressed disappointment with these leaks he felt that they created false expectations calling them a misrepresentation the demo also revealed that classic Sonic's physics were not a one-to-one recreation of those found in the Genesis games the reason given for this was that the physics had to be estimated using the modern sonic engine making a perfect recreation
nearly impossible many unused textures from the game are from 2008 Sonic Unleashed suggesting that generations was built on top of the Unleashed framework Ryan Drummond Sonic's english voice actor between 1999 and 2004 was originally going to reprise his role for Sonic Generations in 2010 second chose to replace most of the series voice cast this included Jason Griffith who was the voice of Sonic and video games since 2005 in an interview with the gaming Liberty Drummond revealed that Sega contacted him during the development of generations asking him to re-audition for the role of Sonic Drummond initially
appeared to be a shoo-in for the role but eventually declined due to his distaste for the contract in his own words when the actual offer came to my agent it was a complete joke they asked me to leave my Union which is how I make a living do all kind of work for no compensation etc it was a real slap in the face I really don't see it ever happening Sega is a huge corporation with zillions of dollars and they don't see any need to change the way they do things since Drummond declined the offer
Roger Craig Smith was chosen for the role instead an interesting offshoot of this is that a third playable Sonic may have been intended for Sonic Generations according to unseen 64 this third Sonic was going to have represented the Dreamcast era of Sonic Adventure sonic adventure 2 and Sonic Heroes this seems fitting as those were the three games in which Drummond voiced the character an interview with Kotaku Aaron Weber revealed that Jaleel White was once slated to voice classic sonic in the game as white originally voiced the hedgehog in various cartoons throughout the 90s for unknown
reasons the plan fell through when so classic sonic was left mute according to Jaleel Sega didn't approach him to voice sonic so this plan likely didn't get very far Sonic Generations was written by the writing team of Ken pon Tech and Warren Graf best known for their writing on the ultraviolent animation Happy Tree Friends contact became involved with Sega when they published Happy Tree Friends false alarm for Xbox Live Arcade in 2008 this led to the pair working on mad world and eventually Sonic the Hedgehog despite this contact claims that he's not much of a
Sonic fan he hadn't played many of the games and instead had to look up cutscenes online to get an idea of the characters he also addressed the criticisms he received from fans simply thanking the fans for being so enthusiastic about the characters despite the writers not being fans however generations is still jam-packed with references to the rest of the Sonic series tails becomes nervous when he sees the purple liquid that covers chemical plant zone this is perhaps a reference to an infamous sequence in Sonic 2 where the player must climb a vertical shaft in order
to avoid drowning in the liquid Sonic 2 of course was tails his debut game sonic quips that the color being sucked out of the land is no stranger than rescuing genies in magic books or saving aliens in an interstellar amusement park referring to the stories of Sonic and the secret rings and Sonic Colors respectively in the level select knuckles can be found in front of sky sanctuary with bunches of grapes growing behind him this is a reference to the Sonic 3 instruction manual which mentions that his favorite food is grapes when performing stunts is sonic
pressing LNR to finish the stunts will cause Sonic to strike an identical pose to the one scene on sonic adventures cover art and insidious cape there are posters in the background that make references to five seemingly forgotten Sonic characters they're wanted posters featuring nack the weasel being the dynamite and bark the polar bear from Sonic the fighters as well as missing person posters featuring ray the flying squirrel and mighty the armadillo from the arcade game Sega Sonic the Hedgehog at both the UK convention summer of sonic 2011 and the u.s. convention sonic boom 2011 the
respective crowds were asked to cheer happy birthday sonic both of those cheers were recorded and can be heard at the end of the games credits don't forget to subscribe to did you know gaming for more facts and trivia and if you're a fan of Sonic click over here to watch did you know gaming Sonic Adventure and if you're still in the need for some Sonic content you could check out my video on Shadow the Hedgehog
