Knuckles' Chaotix

1995 · Platform · Genesis 32X

About Knuckles' Chaotix

Knuckles' Chaotix (1995) is Sega's 32X Sonic spin-off in which Knuckles and the Chaotix are tied to a partner by a rubber-band tether, an ambitious oddity seen as the last of the classic 2D Sonic games.

Knuckles' Chaotix in Depth

It plays like earlier Sonic games, with rings, spin attacks, spin-dashes, shields and speed shoes, but the player is always tethered to a partner, human or computer-controlled, by a band that stretches like a rubber band and has to be used to move through stages. The partner can be called back for ten rings or thrown to distant platforms, and an anchored computer partner can be used to snap up to a ledge or catapult for speed. Five characters each have abilities: Knuckles glides and climbs, Mighty the Armadillo wall-jumps, Espio the Chameleon runs along walls and ceilings, Vector the Crocodile boosts through the air and Charmy Bee flies. Two more partners, the slow Heavy and the explosive Bomb, get in the way.

The six levels, called attractions, each have five acts set at different times of day, the fifth a boss fight with Robotnik. A hub world is used to choose partners and levels. Giant rings found with at least 20 rings lead to free-falling bonus stages, and finishing a level with 50 rings opens a 3D special stage to win one of the Chaos Rings that Robotnik and Metal Sonic want, needed for the good ending.

Making Knuckles' Chaotix

Although Sonic Team is sometimes credited, the game was made by another internal Sega team including Sonic CD staff. Development began around April 1994 as an engine test, then moved to the 32X, and by December Sonic and Tails had been replaced by Knuckles, who had debuted in Sonic 3. The 32X allowed sprite scaling and polygon special stages, and Junko Shiratsu and Mariko Nanba composed the music. Sega released it in Japan on 21 April 1995 and in the West that May and June, rushed, according to Ken Horowitz, to help sluggish 32X sales.

It received mixed reviews and failed commercially along with the 32X. EGM's reviewers praised its graphics and called it one of the best 32X games, and GameFan rated it the best Sonic since Sonic 2, but critics widely found the tether clunky, GamePro likening it to being handcuffed, and the levels sparse and easy. IGN called it "a bad game with a good foundation". Fans have often asked for a re-release; apart from a spell on GameTap in 2005, it has never had one.

Knuckles' Chaotix Trivia

It began as Sonic Crackers, a 1994 Genesis prototype tethering Sonic and Tails, whose ROM leaked in 1995.
Tom Kalinske said it was once meant as a mainline Sonic game for the Saturn, but was "too big, it was taking too long, it was over budgeted, it was behind schedule".
Its working title was Knuckles' Ringstar.
Vector was created for the original Sonic the Hedgehog and scrapped; Charmy came from the Sonic manga; Espio was the only new character.
Apart from Mighty, the Chaotix returned as recurring characters from Sonic Heroes in 2003.