Sonic Team
The initial team formed in 1990 and was composed of developers from Sega's Consumer Development division, including programmer Yuji Naka, artist Naoto Ohshima, and level designer Hirokazu Yasuhara. The team took the name Sonic Team in 1991 with the release of "Sonic the Hedgehog" for the Sega Genesis. The game was a major success that contributed to millions of Genesis sales. The next "Sonic" games were developed by Naka and Yasuhara in America at Sega Technical Institute, while Ohshima worked on "Sonic CD" in Japan. Naka returned to Japan in late 1994 to become the head of CS3, later renamed R&D #8. During this time, the division took on the Sonic Team brand but developed games that do not feature Sonic, such as "Nights into Dreams" (1996) and "Burning Rangers" (1998).
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
For Sonic's 20th anniversary, Sega released "Sonic Generations", which remade aspects of various past games from the franchise. The PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC versions contained a remade "Chemical Plant" level. It also contained a remake of the final boss fight, the Death Egg Robot, as the Classic Era boss of the game. Separately, the Nintendo 3DS version of the game contained a remake of the "Casino Night" level. A "Casino Night" themed pinball minigame was made available for download as a pre-order bonus for the console versions at GameStop. Remade versions of Chemical Plant and Oil Ocean also appear in the 2017 game "Sonic Mania".