Sonic the Hedgehog 4/Trivia


 * Development Gag:
 * The earliest publicity for the game referred to it by the code name Project Needlemouse. "Mr. Needlemouse" is what the developers of the original game called the blue hedgehog before they settled on Sonic as his name.
 * During Sega's Character Countdown for the game, one of the characters listed is "Sonic's new friend Mr. Needlemouse." Over the course of the countdown, Mr. Needlemouse's name remains as others get rejected. On the final day, in which Sonic was revealed to be the only protagonist, Mr. Needlemouse was the only character to have more than one rejection stamp over his name, possibly as a Take That Us to the games' trend of having Loads and Loads of Characters.
 * All of the zones in Episode II are based off of aborted ideas for Sonic 2 stages: a forest, a desert that would be palette shifted to resemble a winter snowdrift with a Christmas theme, and an extension of the final Death Egg Zone.
 * Keep Circulating the Tapes: With the Wii Shop Channel shut down, the WiiWare version of Episode I is this. That said, the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and mobile versions can still be purchased and downloaded, at least for now.