Sonic the Hedgehog Pocket Adventure
In August 1999, SNK announced that they were collaborating with Sega to develop a "Sonic the Hedgehog" game for their Neo Geo Pocket Color handheld system. The game was developed by SNK, with supervision from Yuji Naka and Sonic Team at Sega. This marked the first time Sega was directly involved in the development of a "Sonic" game for a non-Sega platform. The team planned for "Sonic Pocket Adventure" to be a return to the classic 2D gameplay style found in the "Sonic" games on the Sega Genesis. In particular, many game design and visual elements are borrowed from "Sonic 2". The game's background music tracks are also 8-bit renditions of music from "Sonic 3". "Sonic Pocket Adventure" was released first in North America on December 4, 1999. SNK released a system bundle with the game included for the holiday season. The game was released in Japan two weeks later, and in Europe in February 2000.
Sonic Team
The Saturn did not achieve the commercial success of the Genesis, so Sega focused its efforts on a new console, the Dreamcast, which debuted in Japan in 1998. The Dreamcast was seen as opportunity for Sonic Team to revisit the "Sonic" series, which had stalled in recent years. Sonic Team was originally creating a fully 3D "Sonic" game for the Saturn, but development moved to the Dreamcast to align with Sega's plans. Takashi Iizuka led the project; Iizuka had long wanted to create a "Sonic" role-playing video game and felt the Dreamcast was powerful enough to achieve his vision. The game became "Sonic Adventure", launched in 1998, which became the bestselling Dreamcast game.