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 the Hedgehog
The first "Sonic the Hedgehog" game, released in 1991, was conceived by Sega's Sonic Team division after Sega requested a mascot character to compete with Nintendo's mascot Mario. Its success spawned many sequels and helped Sega become one of the leading video game companies during the 16-bit era of the early 1990s. The first major 3D "Sonic" game, "Sonic Adventure", was released in 1998. Spin-offs have explored other genres, including racing games such as "Sonic R" (1997) and sports games such as "Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games" (2007).