To celebrate Sonic the Hedgehog’s 35th anniversary, SEGA has launched the Sonic the Hedgehog: Memories and Beyond animated short, which is now live on YouTube.
The 13-minute-long video sees Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, Amy, and Rouge teaming up to face the nefarious Dr Eggman once more, although this time, the villain has an ace up his sleeve with Metal Sonic, who gets upgraded by stealing Sonic’s life data and harnessing the power of the Chaos Emeralds, pitting the heroes against the ultimate fighting machine.
Sonic the Hedgehog: Memories and Beyond is directed by Kevin Molina-Ortiz (Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), with Ian Flynn (Sonic Frontiers) writing. The short is also helmed by animation studio GXS Productions, which previously worked on other Sonic projects like the animations for Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds and Sonic x Shadow Generations: Dark Beginnings.
The short also sees the return of familiar voices, with Roger Craig Smith, Colleen O’Shaughnessey, Dave B. Mitchell, Cindy Robinson, Kirk Thornton, Karen Strassman, and Mike Pollock reprising their voice roles as Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Shadow, Rouge, and Dr Eggman, respectively. The short’s Japanese voice cast comprises Jun-ichi Kanemaru (Sonic), Ryo Hirohashi (Tails), Nobutoshi Canna (Knuckles), Taeko Kawata (Amy), Koji Yusa (Shadow), Rumi Ochiai (Rouge), and Kotaro Nakamura (Eggman).
Sonic is also set to see a live-action return in Paramount’s upcoming live-action Sonic the Hedgehog 4 film in 2027, with the sequel also seeing the introduction of Amy and Metal Sonic. While the film has no connection with the animated short, it will hopefully have some surprise character reveals in store, just like its three predecessors, so maybe Rouge the Bat will be getting her live-action debut too, we’ll just have to wait and see.
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
Si Jia
Joey Leong
