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Description

Ristar developed from an idea originally put forward during design talks for the character who would later become Sonic the Hedgehog. Yuji Naka, head of Sonic Team, recalled in 1992:

“At first we used a character that looked like a rabbit with ears that could extend and pick up objects. As the game got faster and faster, we needed to come up with a special characteristic to give our character some power over his enemies. I remembered a character I had thought about years ago who could roll himself into a ball and slam into enemies. Hedgehogs can roll themselves into a ball, so we decided to go from a rabbit to a hedgehog.”

Some years later, the game starring that rabbit-type character was developed separately from Sonic, and eventually evolved into a prototype called Feel. The rabbit resemblance in Feel was already phased out and the character no longer used his ears, but his arms. After some changes in the main character, and going through several names (including "Volt"), that game eventually became what is now known as Ristar. The name also went through further changes during development of the Western versions, going from Ristar the Shooting Star to Dexstar, and finally to Ristar.

Only known image of the was-to-be character: www.saturdaymorningsonic.com/i…

Description

Ristar developed from an idea originally put forward during design talks for the character who would later become Sonic the Hedgehog. Yuji Naka, head of Sonic Team, recalled in 1992:

“At first we used a character that looked like a rabbit with ears that could extend and pick up objects. As the game got faster and faster, we needed to come up with a special characteristic to give our character some power over his enemies. I remembered a character I had thought about years ago who could roll himself into a ball and slam into enemies. Hedgehogs can roll themselves into a ball, so we decided to go from a rabbit to a hedgehog.”

Some years later, the game starring that rabbit-type character was developed separately from Sonic, and eventually evolved into a prototype called Feel. The rabbit resemblance in Feel was already phased out and the character no longer used his ears, but his arms. After some changes in the main character, and going through several names (including "Volt"), that game eventually became what is now known as Ristar. The name also went through further changes during development of the Western versions, going from Ristar the Shooting Star to Dexstar, and finally to Ristar.

Only known image of the was-to-be character: www.saturdaymorningsonic.com/i…