Knuckles Chaotix - the Games

The Knuckles Chaotix is probably most well-known thanks to their appearance in Sonic Heroes, for Nintendo Gamecube, Playstation 2 and X-box, and thanks to the official Knuckles Chaotix game for the 32X, which was released in 1995. But the story of the Chaotix begins even earlier...

SegaSonic the hedgehog (Arcade) 1992

The appearance of the first Chaotix member in a videogame was already in 1993, and that member was Mighty the Armadillo. He appeared together with Ray the Squirrel (who made his first and only appearance in a videogame) and Sonic the Hedgehog in the first Sonic Arcade game, SegaSonic Arcade.



This game had more or less the same layout as Sonic 3D Blast (Flickie's Island) for Sega Genesis/MegaDrive and Sega Saturn. The control was very innovative, as the game was controlled with a trackball to move the character (it was possible to play up to three players at the same time) and a button to jump. This was a quite exhausting control system, as you easily would get tired in your arm by rolling the trackball over and over again.

The storyline was slightly different the other Sonicgames. Dr Eggman is up to his no good deeds once again, but this time he has no particular intention to conquer the world, this time he simply wants to get rid of Sonic, Ray and Mighty once and foor good. One day as the characters are out and running, Eggman captures them and brings them to his Island Fortress, where they must get through various parts of the island in order to escape (There are stages such as a Lava Zone, Ice Zone, Desert Zone etc). The game is pretty short with only 6 stages, and playing through the game from beginning to the end shouldn't take much more than 20 minutes. But still, it would get too exhausting if the game was any longer because of the trackball...

Below are some better screenshots from the game.












The game is of great fun, as it also contains a good potion of humor (for example, if Mighty falls off a cliff, he may actually lose his shell!). The game never was released for any home system, which is a great shame. It would very well have been possible to squeeze this game into a MegaDrive cartrdige.







Although SegaSonic Arcade was not included to Sonic Gems Collection, the game is available, fully playable through emulation. You can download the ROM here (9,0 Mb), and run it together with the program emulation program MAME.



The ROM prototype could be downloaded here (4,2 Mb). The difference to the first version is that this indeed is a prototype that ends after the Desert Dodge zone. If you want to play the prototype version, you also need the emulator program Modeler, which you could download here (the location of this link may change. If the link gets broken, please inform me about it, and I'll look up another location).



One last thing to mention about the game is that this is the first Sonic game which Sonic actually was talking, and the same goes for Ray and Mighty. They all three had unique voices, and if you'd like to hear Mighty's voice, click here.



If you want the watch the ending sequence, you could click here to view both the complete good and bad ending. This zip contains a few neat pics of Sonic, Mighty and Ray that never have seen the light online before!!


Gale Racer (Sega Saturn) 1994



Gale Racer was a classic arcade game, more known as Rad Mobile, a Turbo OutRun similar game that hit the arcades in the early 90s. In the arcade version, an ornament of Sonic the Hedgehog was dangling from the ceiling. For the Saturn version, this ornament was kept, but could be changed by the player as he would gain "mascots" in the game. With 300 mascots collected, the ornament would change to Mighty, at 600 it would change to Ray (with several other characters such as Tails, Amy Rose, Eggman, Metal Sonic). These ornaments were a bit of tributes to the games Sonic 2 on the Genesis, Sonic CD and SegaSonic Arcade. As this game was released before Knuckles Chaotix, no other Chaotix members, except for Mighty, appeared.




This game has only been released in Japan, but could be bought over Ebay without too much problems. Just make sure that your Saturn either is Japanese, or that you have a converter to play Japanese games (easy to get as well).




Sonic Crackers (Sega Genesis Prototype) 1994

Sonic Crackers was a prototype of Knuckles Chaotix (which later was released on the 32X), and this prototype was never released officially. However, the prototype has been emulated, and if you'd like to give the game a look, you can download it here (0,4 Mb). In order to play the ROM, you also need the Genecyst Emulator, which you could download here (0,4 Mb). In case the emulator is not working, please drop me a line, and I'll check it up. Screenshots below:





Sonic and Tails were the only characters to appear in this prototype. None of the Chaotix members are available in it. I don't think it is possible to reach any goal (or to complete) this prototype, at least I never managed to do so.

Knuckles Chaotix (Sega 32X) 1995



This game was the first official appearance of the entire Chaotix, and the game was released in 1995. Originally, the game was called "Knuckles Ring Star", which got changed later on. The storyline was pretty traditional for the Sonic the Hedgehog-universe, Eggman is a pain in the neck as usual, and this time, his target is the Floating Island and the chaos rings! The major difference to other Sonicgames was that this game was very suiting for 2 players, as the player control two players at the same time (one leading character and one following). The two players were connected with a kind of elastic band between each other, in order to do certain special moves (mainly for climbing high walls). Screenshots below:







All members of the Chaotix had their own special moves. Knuckles could glide and dig in the walls (as usual) to climb up high walls, Espio could actually walk up the walls, even up-side-down, Mighty could climb up walls quickly with his feet alone, Charmy could fly, and Vector was able to climb walls as well. Vector had a jet-pack as well, but this jetpack was far from useful.

The game is overall pretty easy to complete, as you have unlimited of lives in the game, but the 3D stages, where you must pick up blue spheres in order to get the chaos rings, are rather tricky, as you could easily fall off the course or run out of time. Another problem with the game is that the game tend to get rather repeating, as the levels within the same zone are pretty equal to each other.

This game has only been released on the 32X, and many players have requested this game to appear in some sort of new Sonic Mega Collection. I seriously doubt this ever will happen, but the game has been emulated. The ROM is available here (1,7 Mb). You also need the emulation program WinGen211, which you can download here. You also need the 32X Bios, which you can download here. For information about how set everything together and run the game, click here.

Sonic the Fighters (Arcade) 1996



At first when I heard that there would be a fighting game with Sonic the Hedgehog, I thought it was a joke. But wrong I was, as this game was released in 1996. Eggman is about to conquer the world yet another time, and is going to destroy the planet with his Second Death Egg (as the first Death Egg was destroyed in Sonic & Knuckles). The strongest fighter in a fighting competition must challenge Eggman and prevent him from executing his plans.

Screenshots:















Espio the Chameleon and Knuckles the Echidna were the Chaotix members to appear in this game, and Espio had his special moves such as his tornado spin attack, throwing attack and *tongue* attack!! Knuckles had his standard spin and knuckle attack. This game too contained a lot of humor, just like SegaSonic Arcade, and there were plans that this game would have been released on the Sega Saturn, but as it got cancelled and was available at very few places all over the world (only in Japan, Sega World in London and a few other places in the USA), the most fans of Sonic the hedgehog have not had the opportunity to play this game. But, the game has been emulated and runs perfectly! The ROM could be downloaded here (17 Mb). You also need the Nebula Emulator to run the game, which is here (860 kb). If this emulator version does not work, try The Nebula Homepage. For information about how to run the emulation program and the game, click here.



Sonic Heroes (Gamecube, Playstation 2, X-Box, PC) 2003



Sonic Heroes was the latest appearance of the Chaotix in a videogame as far. Eggman is planning to conquer the world within three days, so our heroes go and saves the day. But the original structure of the Chaotix is gone is this game, as "Team Chaotix" exclude Mighty the Armadillo (probably of the reason that his features is most similar to Sonic, and that he was less "interesting" for Sonic Team to develop) and Knuckles (who appears in Hero Team). In this game, the Chaotix set up a Detective Agency and would work for anyone with a good purpose and plenty of cash!! One day, the Chaotix get a commission from a stranger, and the adventure is on...!

Screenshots below:







This game has in my *very humble* opinion gotten a credit it certainly did not deserve. I was very dissapointed with Sonic Heroes, as the control is very hard to master, and of the simple reason that the game is filled with bugs (falling through invisible walls, dropping from lianas without any reason, camera angle messing up etc). I have never cursed so much at a videogame ever since I played the impossible-to-complete game Sword of Sodan on the Sega MegaDrive/Genesis. The storyline was less dynamic as in Sonic Adventure 1 & 2, which made this game a major dissapointment. I wouldn't rate this game more than 3 points out of 10, though I admit that I am impressed about the cut-scenes, the outstanding graphics and the half-crazed American/Japanese soundtracks. But in my humble opinion, there was not much of heroism in this game. On top of it, the ending is of the most cheesiest thing I've ever seen in a videogame...!

Sonic Gems collection (Gamecube) 2005




The Chaotix made a tiny bit of a comeback in Sonic Gems Collection (which yet another collection of Sonic Games), in which Sonic the Fighters was included. They also appeared in the gallery as unlockable images.




Shadow the hedgehog - The Return of Chaotix!! 2005




Shadow the hedgehog was released in November last year, and became rather popular among the Gamecubefans. Shadow is the main star of this game, and this time, he is trying to remember his past, and could chose either to be a hero or a villian. To get through the stages, he is able to use various kinds of weapons, mainly guns. On each stage, a character tags along, helping Shadow in one way or another. The Chaotix (with exception for Mighty, of course) appear together in a couple of cut-scenes, and tag along Shadow at certain stages in the game.

The game is graphicwise very good. Smooth animations, and control far better than in Sonic Heroes. The problem is just that the stages are too similar to each other, which makes things very repeating. Music is average/poor. The storyline is rather confusing, and the new characters, Black Doom, the President and the Commander have no personality whatsoever. Lines such as "Contact the CIA..." and "We will never surrender to terrorists" (George Bush, anyone?) from the (American) president in the game, makes me believe that Sonic Team is trying to gain sympathy within the American Government (in reality), which is completely pathetic. Ontop of it, cheesy ending, causing more confusion than when the game begins. I rate this game 5 out of 10. Better than Sonic Heroes, but not by much.
Read these articles to learn more about the game.

Nintendo Power #1
Nintendo Power #2


If you want to view a video from the game (The Chaotix appear for a split-second!), click here.
A great quality movie with Shadow and Charmy Bee could be downloaded here.


To read more articles and/or to see more screenshots, clickhere, here, or here. There is a 25Mb movie available from one of the pages. Interesting stuff, but only less than half of the movie is related to the game.





Sonic Rivals 2 PSP - 2007 - Espio the Chameleon returns! (and Vector)






Sonic Rivals, part 1, was released exclusive for the PSP (Playstation Portable) and was basically a racing game against a rival, with the ultimate goal to prevent Dr Eggman from his bad deeds as usual. In the second part, there were a few new playable characters, and Espio the Chameleon was one of them. Vector makes an NPC appearance, informing Espio about his mission and appears in the ending sequence as well.



This time "Nega Eggman" (masquerading as Dr Eggman) has captured a chao and wants to feed an inter dimensional beast called "Ifrit", who needs it in order to become invicible.

There are, so to say, various storied for each character, and in Espio's case, he teams up with Silver the hedgehog to save the chao.

Enjoy this short videoclip with Tails and Espio talking to each other (thanks to Rugalb95 for providing this video). And why...why is Tails' voice getting worse with each game...?


Mario & Sonic at the Olympics - Nintendo DS & WII - 2007 - Vector, (and Espio and Charmy)









Vector has returned as a power player and Espio the Chemelon and Charmy Bee as referees in Mario & Sonic at the Olympics. mighty does not appear in the game. I will try to add screenshots of the crocodile as soon as possible.


Sonic Chronicels - September 2008 - (Vector)




In September 2008, the RPG "Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood" was released on the Nintendo DS. The basic plot is that Knuckles has been kidnapped by a group called the Marauders, and that Sonic, Tails, Amy, and a couple of other friends must save him. Vector only appears in a cut-scene, and is not playable in the game. The role is in any case not too great, so this barely qualifies as a Chaotix-related game.



Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games - Nintendo DS & WII - October 2009 - Vector (and Espio and Charmy)




This game is very much similar to the the previous Olympic games, this time being a spin-off of the Winter games of Vancouver. Except that the game indeed is a winter game, and thus the events are different, not very much has changed to the game. Vector is still playable as a power type and Espio and Charmy are back as referees. Many thanks to Jacob Copeland for some of the screenshots, and for confirming Epsio and Charmy.





Sonic Colors - Nintendo DS & WII - November 2010 - (Espio, Vector and Charmy)




Another Sonic-game in the traditional Sonic Adventure style, and this time, Eggman has set up some sort of amusement park in space, which Sonic and Tails go to investigate. Espio, Vector and Charmy have supporting roles in the game, but are not playable. Screenshots below from the DS version:



Sonic Free Riders - Xbox 360 - November 2010 - Vector




This game is similar to the original Sonic Riders, but the difference is that you this time control the player on the board with your entire body, either as alone, or together with a second player. Vector is the only playable character from Team Chaotix, and he belongs to "team Rose", teaming up with Amy Rose and Cream the Rabbit. Screenshots below:





(Note: Except for the games listed above, Knuckles the Echidna has appeared in several other games such as Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 etc, but he alone wouldn't quite be enough to list the game as related to the Chaotix)


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