Hedgehog Double Feature: Sonic 2 XL & Doomsday Zone Animation

Today, we have two Sonic the Hedgehog videos on display, one of which is from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. If it weren’t Friday, we would dub this “Sonic 2sday.” And then be promptly sued by SEGA for infringing on their advertising gimmick of 1992.

The first video is from a hack of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 called “Sonic 2 XL.” Here, all of the golden power rings Sonic collects have been replaced by… *cue dramatic music* …onion rings!

Normally, the more rings Sonic gets, the healthier he is in battle. But when they’re deep-fried and plentiful… well, see for yourself:

To be frank, this writer tends not to deal in ROMs and the like, and if you want to know where to get this? Couldn’t really tell you. There is, however, a link from the YouTube post of the above video, and that may or may not have everything you need.

Next is a different type of fan video, a computer-generated animation of the final level of Sonic & Knuckles, the Doomsday Zone. The creator, who guys by the curious YouTube username of MajorDump, began the project a year ago, and this is the fruit of that labor:

He notes in the infobox of the YouTube post:

the goal was to remake the last zone from Sonic & Knuckles as a 3D animation. I wanted to add additional story points at the beginning and end to compliment the existing canon of the game. This is evidenced by my little additive prologue where Sonic finds the emeralds in space.

Of course, as anyone who has played through this part of the game knows, this video doesn’t depict the whole story. MajorDump had planned to do more, but…

I got burnt out. Animation is a tough craft. It’s especially tough when you’re not sure of your own abilities. Slap that on top of having a full time animation job at the time, and it’s a nightmare having the will to make time for this. You spend all your day on Autodesk Maya, the last thing you want to do when you come home is load up Maya again.

Understandable; as one who tends to write about video games for most of the week as a matter of work, it detracts from the luster of doing it for recreation.

That said, things have changed for MajorDump; with a new job at BioWare that doesn’t involve doing animation, there is hope of finishing the animation, which would include a powerless Sonic sky-diving after the Master Emerald before being saved by Tails in his Tornado biplane, and the two returning the giant gem to its rightful home on the Floating Island.

Until then, we’ll just have to settle for whatever SEGA deals us in Sonic Colors and Sonic the Hedgehog 4. Lucky for us, they do good work when it comes to computer animation– whether you liked Sonic Unleashed or not, you have to at least admit that the opening was good.