--- By Ganarii --- Sonic and Knuckles Blast --- I. Overview I don't know how many people actually bought Sonic Blast for the Game Gear, although I suspect not many, as I only know of 2, counting myself. Anyway, my theory is this: Sonic Blast has no relation to Sonic 3D Blast for Genesis or Saturn. It's a remake of Sonic & Knuckles. What I think is that they were going to make an adaptation of Sonic & Knuckles for the Game Gear, but it was cancelled. Sonic Triple Trouble, remember, was like an adaptation of Sonic 3. Sonic and Tails were playable, and Knuckles was the bad guy. Now then, in Sonic Blast, Sonic and Knuckles are playable, but not Tails. Just like Sonic & Knuckles. II. The Zones Let's look at the Zones in Sonic Blast for a second: 1. Green Hill Zone - Mushroom Hill, of course. They could easily change the mushrooms to those long flowers that are there. 2. Yellow Desert Zone - Sandopolis. They probably took out the Flying Battery adaptation when Sonic Blast was formed from the dust of the S&K adaptation, thinking that would make it too obvious. Or maybe the adaptation was boring because they couldn't get the gadgets to work, or something like that. But look at the similarities. Yellow Desert Zone: Act 1 - Outside. Act 2 - Inside a dark chamber. Sandopolis Zone: Act 1 - Outside. Act 2 - Inside a dark chamber. 3. Red Volcano Zone - Lava Reef. Yes, I am aware that it starts at night to begin with. But both Zones are part inside and part outside. And spindash elevators similar to Lava Reef's are there. 4. Blue Marine Zone - Probably added later for Sonic Blast. 5. Silver Castle Zone - This was probably also added later. III. Why would they cancel the S&K adaptation? I think it probably had something to do with Lock-On. Here are my two theories. 1. Sega was going to have it lock on to Sonic Triple Trouble, but then partly through development, they figured out that despite their best efforts, Lock-On just would not work with the Game Gear. Or maybe the cartridge size was a problem and it wouldn't fit in the system that way. 2. They already knew Lock-On wouldn't work with Game Gear, but they thought the success of Sonic & Knuckles would make this adaptation sell. Then later on, they thought: Reality check here. It wasn't Sonic & Knuckles that was popular, it was Sonic 3 & Knuckles. People would complain that without game save, it would be too hard, or without Tails, it would be boring. Besides, the graphics weren't too good and people would probably be disappointed with the quality. IV. Why did they use it again for Sonic Blast? I have two more theories on this. 1. First, the obvious. The schmoozers who should be making Game Gear games but had nothing to do heard about the Sonic 3D Blast buzz, and wanted to make a Game Gear companion to it. They figured in 3D, it would turn out like Sonic Labyrinth did - boring and horrible. But they didn't have time for a new engine. So they were looking through the pile of about 180 million Sonic games that got scrapped when they found the rejected Sonic & Knuckles adaptation. They changed the level names and graphics, added 2 new levels and a special stage and probably made some adjustments to the programming. 2. Their "Sonic 3D Blast for Game Gear" engine got all screwed up just like Sonic X-Tream, and they resorted to the Sonic & Knuckles scrapped engine at the last second and made the adjustments noted in the first theory. This would explain the lack of footage or advertising for the Game Gear version. V. Conclusion So.. do you think Sonic Blast was successful? How many people do you know who have it? I think the failure of Sonic Blast was due not to no game save or no Tails, but because of lack of advertising, as described above, and because compared to the Genesis/Saturn Sonic 3D Blast advertised, a Game Gear game doesn't seem so promising (besides Sonic Drift 2, the Game Gear really hasn't had its share of hits). --- Taken from 'Secrets of Sonic the Hedgehog - The Original' http://secretsonic.cjb.net ---