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Sonic Crackers, also known by the name on the ROM header, Sonic Studium, is an early Sonic the Hedgehog prototype game for the Sega Megadrive.
The game is called "Sonic Crackers" because of the rather rudimentary title screen. Sonic CulT (a group involved in chronicling the history of the Sonic series) has observed that programmers often give silly titles to games in the ROM header, giving strength to the argument that the "Sonic Studium" name in the header should be ignored.
The game was rumored to have been Sonic the Hedgehog 4. Many say this is false as the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 sprites were not used in the prototype, instead Sonic the Hedgehog 2's were used as the base.
The game has Sonic the Hedgehog and Tails joined together by a band of rings. This would later become the idea for Knuckles' Chaotix for the Sega 32X.
The Sonic Crackers ROM is likely a submissions ROM, which is used to test new ideas to see if the SEGA management likes the game or not.
The ROM has three levels. One is a level that swaps palletes and different iterations of the same song. After 3 minutes, or if the player reaches the end of the stage, that level ends and the player is brought to an adventure field. If the player pauses and hits a button, the game goes to a carnival-like level that goes around in an infinite loop. When 1 minute elapses, the circus level ends and another adventure field begins. After the player pauses and hits another button, he or she is brought back to the pallete swapping level with another pallete.
There are two flavours of Sonic Crackers. They are the 1MB dump and the 2MB overdump. The 2MB overdump contains about half of a prototype Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game. The precise game that the prototype is for has not been determined.
Knuckles' Chaotix, the final game, teams up Knuckles the Echidna or another member of the Chaotix crew in pairs, joined together by a band of rings. The gameplay is somewhat similar to the later game, Sonic Heroes, in that you have control over both of the characters (unlike Sonic the Hedgehog 2 or 3, in which player 2 or the computer controlled the optional second player).
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