Now, here's where things really start to get interesting (and you hopefully start to see that I'm not quite so crazy after all). In the western territories, however, things were a bit different. But whatever became of these other characters? As far as we know in Japan, very little ever did-they stayed tiny. We recognize the “Flicky” right away for its role in Sega's 1984 Flicky arcade game and its prominent role in Sonic 3D Blast. The tiny animals even got plushies in Japan! From left to right (translated): Pecky the penguin, Ricky the squirrel, Picky the pig, Rocky the walrus, Cucky the chicken, Pocky the Rabbit, and Flicky the bird. While the American/European version of the Sonic 1 manual only references the tiny animals in passing, the Japanese version actually bestows each of these animals with its own identity and corresponding image in the section on “Story”: Remember those little animals that popped out of Robotnik's badniks when you destroyed them? There were seven different characters (we'll call them the “tiny animals” since they were so. Think I'm stretching things a bit? Bear with me.Ĭontrary to popular belief, the saga of the Freedom Fighters begins very early on in the development of the Sonic franchise well before these characters were actually known by their collective title. So, where am I going with this? Well, this “animal population” is where the Freedom Fighters come in. Sonic serves a beacon of freedom a solitary hero able to come to the aid of the rest of the animal citizenry.

Eggman in Japan) and trapped inside robotic creatures (“badniks”) doomed to do his bidding. It began as a simple environmental allegory about technology in the hands of evil: Sonic's animal forest friends are being rounded up by the sinister Dr. Our story begins at the birth of the Sonic franchise itself: Sonic 1 on the SEGA Genesis / Mega Drive. So where did they come from, and where did they go? Did Sonic pack up and leave his old friends in the dust? Let's take a look at the history of this somewhat neglected group of Sonic characters. Yet today, even the lengthiest-borderline colossal-lists of Sonic characters published by Sega pass the Freedom Fighters over without so much as a mere mention. Featured in western-developed cartoons, comics, books, merchandise, and established in Sega of America's own internal continuity, this diverse team of forest critters was well known to many fans as Sonic's definitive group of friends. Back in the early 90s when Sonic the Hedgehog was still fresh on the gaming scene-back before Knuckles the Echidna, Cream the Rabbit, Rouge the Bat, or Shadow the Hedgehog were even a flicker in the creative minds at Sonic Team-there was another cast of characters supporting our lovable blue hero in the western world: The Freedom Fighters.

Sonic and the freedom fighters