A Sonic the Hedgehog fan has imagined how the series’ most-recent side-scrolling entry, Sonic Mania, might look if it were released for the Sega Saturn. While Sega’s 32-bit console often remains obscure, this concept art shows that the console shouldn’t be forgotten.
Sonic Mania is a callback to the series’ 16-bit heyday, but less people remember Sega’s efforts immediately following the Genesis games. The Sega Saturn was not a success for Sega, harming the company and the Sonic the Hedgehog brand. Sega tried to develop a blockbuster 3D Sonic title for the system, known as Sonic X-Treme, but a variety of factors kept the game from ever coming to fruition. In its place, Saturn owners received pseudo-3D platformer Sonic 3D Blast and racing game/platformer hybrid Sonic R, neither of which took the gaming world by storm.
Reddit user Spencer87023 rendered one of Sonic Mania‘s villains, the illusionist robot called Heavy Magician, as a 3D model. The model bears more than a little similarity to some of Sega’s earliest 3D games, such as Virtua Fighter, as it has a blocky, polygonal look. While Sonic Mania does feature some 3D models, these are mostly restricted to the game’s Special Stages; Heavy Magician and other villains do not appear in 3D anywhere.
While Sonic did eventually establish several straightforward 3D gameplay styles in later years, that wasn’t always the case. Sonic X-Treme is infamous for having Sonic’s movements be viewed through a fish-eye lens at one point during development. This confusing and unintuitive way of depicting Sonic’s world would take away from the pixel art and classic aesthetic that make Sonic Mania so enjoyable to watch in motion.
The best way for fans to see Sonic in 3D on the Sega Saturn is through the game Sonic R, but that game principally positions the camera behind the characters’ backs, making it hard to appreciate the work that went into character models. This means fans looking to see more Sonic characters rendered in this style may want to check out Sonic the Fighters, an arcade-exclusive fighting game. While it is not often seen as a great game, it has a bright and cartoony aesthetic in line with the model shared by Spencer87023.
This is not the only blocky iteration of Sonic Mania to have been developed as of late. Thanks to a widely supported fan idea, LEGO will produce a Sonic Mania set depicting the game’s first level, Green Hill Zone. While the proposal is liable to change before the commercial version is unveiled, it includes a LEGO version of Heavy Magician. This means fans of the Saturn-styled Heavy Magician aesthetic may be able to see something similar in real life soon.
Sonic Mania is available now on PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
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