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In issue 260 of Nintendo Power, Yuji Naka revealed that the initial concept for Sonic the Hedgehog's gameplay came from playing level 1-1 of Super Mario Bros. over and over again as fast as he could, since you always had to play the level first regardless of whether you used warp zones or not.
"I always tried to get through the level as fast as I could. And that inspired the initial concept for Sonic the Hedgehog."
"I always tried to get through the level as fast as I could. And that inspired the initial concept for Sonic the Hedgehog."
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In Act 1 of Green Hill Zone, it is possible to die by going too fast. At a certain point in the stage, the camera may not be able to keep up with you when you dip downhill, causing the game to think that Sonic has fallen into a bottomless pit.
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In early screenshots of the Genesis game, a UFO could be spotted, but was not present in the final game. Yet when Sonic the Hedgehog was released in 2005 for mobile phones, the UFO sprite was found hidden away in the files, but still unused.
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The game's soundtrack was composed on an Atari computer.
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The Japanese version of the game has more parallax scrolling layers. An example would be that the clouds in some of the zones move across the screen, while the international version the clouds are stationary. The Labyrinth zone also has an underwater wave effect in the Japanese version. The only zones that were not changed were the Starlight zone and the Final zone.
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In an early version of Sonic The Hedgehog shown in a pilot episode for the TV game-show "Nick Arcade", a rolling ball can be found towards the start of Green Hill Zone Act 1. This was removed from the game's final release.
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Hirokazu Yasuhara was going to go to America to establish a new development team but because of the Gulf war between Iran and Kuwait, his trip was delayed. Yuji Naka and Naoto Oshima noticed him being upset and decided to let him join their team temporarily until he leaves. He ended up staying for a year to design the levels for major games such as Sonic the Hedgehog.
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It's possible to play the game using an Atari 2600 controller, as every button besides start works as a jump button, and thus the game is fully playable despite the controller only having a single button.
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While it's not known if any Sega employees have commented on this connection, it was acknowledged in the form of a small cameo appearance where Sonic gets outrun by Arale in the 1993 sequel manga "The Brief Return of Dr. Slump".
Super Mario Bros. 3 Tanuki article:
https://www.thrillingtalesofoldvideogames.com/blog/smb3-tanuki-fly-ringed-tail
Sonic the Hedgehog title screen similarities:
https://twitter.com/the_pico_cafe/status/1451622885781540869
https://twitter.com/KaelanRamos/status/1451647776484438017
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 title screen similarities:
https://twitter.com/KaelanRamos/status/1620416719633420294
Sonic's cameo in The Brief Return of Dr. Slump:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SonicTheHedgehog/comments/zenlr6/sonic_briefly_makes_an_appearence_in_the_dr_slump/
https://twitter.com/tatsunical/status/1624105920966828032
https://www.thrillingtalesofoldvideogames.com/blog/smb3-tanuki-fly-ringed-tail
Sonic the Hedgehog title screen similarities:
https://twitter.com/the_pico_cafe/status/1451622885781540869
https://twitter.com/KaelanRamos/status/1451647776484438017
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 title screen similarities:
https://twitter.com/KaelanRamos/status/1620416719633420294
Sonic's cameo in The Brief Return of Dr. Slump:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SonicTheHedgehog/comments/zenlr6/sonic_briefly_makes_an_appearence_in_the_dr_slump/
https://twitter.com/tatsunical/status/1624105920966828032
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