Earlier this week, a new image (above) began floating around of the 1990 Tokyo Toy Show build of Sonic The Hedgehog. The image comes by way of the August 1990 issue of Japanese magazine MegaDrive Fan.
As with any Sonic 1 prototype finding, a certain buzz flies around of “Is it real or is it a hoax?” Thanks to forum user JumpingRyle, we can fully confirm the authenticity of the shots from a full page scan of the magazine in question.
Tokyo Toy Show
When it comes to new information about early versions of Sonic the Hedgehog titles, we here at Sonic Retro get very excited. If you’ve been here long enough, you may remember that this whole community was birthed because a certain fellow stumbled across the Sonic 2 Beta many moons ago. In the interim, we’ve been able to get our hands on even more Sonic 2 prereleases, not to mention early builds of Chaotix, Sonic CD, Sonic Spinball, and who can forget the interviews and concept art that have been gathered over the years…but there has been a holy grail that is still elusive to this day. Something that, until last summer, we didn’t even know existed. What I am talking about is the very first playable version of the original Sonic the Hedgehog designed specifically for the Tokyo Toy Show back in June of 1990. The only shots of that build we had for ages were of Sonic standing in a pose not seen anywhere else, and Sonic running next to a sign that we still don’t have a clear shot of. But today, that all has changed.