Sonic the Hedgehog 3

Knuckles the Echidna is a video game character of the Sonic the Hedgehog game series, including spin-off games and comics. His first appearance was... in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, released in 1994 to introduce a new rival for Sonic. He was presented as an antagonist who was tricked by Dr. Eggman into fighting Sonic. But after discovering this, he has been friends with Sonic since then. Knuckles is a 16-year-old red anthropomorphic echidna, who is both physically powerful and highly resilient. In most Sonic games, his skills include climbing on ledges or walls and gliding in the air for short periods of time. He has a white crescent on his chest and four knuckles total, two on each hand, which are over grown bones. He is both a friend and a rival to Sonic. During conception of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, the development team wanted to create a new rival for Sonic. The final design of Knuckles was the result of dozens of possible designs inspired by numerous different animals. The emphasis of the character was to break walls. Ever since the character appeared in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, he has been thought of as an "intimidator" because of his powerful abilities.
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Doctor Ivo Robotnik , also known by his alias Doctor Eggman , is a video game character and the main antagonist of the Sonic the Hedgehog series... created by Sega. Dr. Eggman is a rotund mad scientist with an IQ of 300, who plans to conquer the world in order to build his Eggman Empire, and is the archenemy of Sonic the Hedgehog. His original character designer was Naoto Ōshima, and while he has gone through several large appearance changes throughout the series, his in-game designs retain several basic characteristics, such as his egg-shaped body, red-black-yellow clothing, pince-nez sunglasses and large mustache. Most of the time, Dr. Eggman is portrayed as horribly immature: he tends to throw temper tantrums when he fails or is offended, despite his incredible intellect and skilled mind. He has appeared in almost every Sonic the Hedgehog video game since his first appearance in the 1991 title Sonic the Hedgehog, and is also a prominent character in other Sonic media, including comics, novels, animated TV series, and an Original video animation.
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Miles Prower , also known by his nickname Tails , is a video game character, as well as the deuteragonist of the Sonic the Hedgehog series released... by Sega. He also appears in comic books, cartoons, and a feature film. The name "Miles Prower" is a pun on "miles per hour", a reference to the famed speed of Sonic the Hedgehog. He is an eight-year-old fox with two tails, hence the nickname. He is known to be Sonic's sidekick, best friend, and a mechanic. He is able to use his two tails to propel himself into the air like a helicopter for a limited time. His debut was in October 16, 1992 in the 8-bit version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2; the 16-bit version was released that November. When he was first introduced in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Tails' fur was orange. The color was changed to yellow-orange for Sonic Adventure, and later to light yellow for Sonic Heroes. In 1993 and 1995, he starred in his own games, Tails and the Music Maker for the Pico, Tails Adventure, and Tails' Skypatrol for the Game Gear. Tails is the third most popular character of the series, behind Sonic and Shadow, according to official polls.
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Yuji Naka , is a video game designer and programmer, best known as the former head of Sonic Team, a group of Sega programmers/designers, where he was the lead programmer of the original Sonic the Hedgehog. In early games he was often credited as "YU2" and "Muuu Yuji". Naka is one of the few high-profile Japanese game creators to speak fluent English. Since 2006 he has been the head of Prope, an independent game company he founded after leaving... Sega that same year. Naka learned how to program by replicating and debugging video game code printed in magazines. The experience prompted him to study assemblers and practice writing code during his school classes. After graduating high school, Naka decided to skip university and stay in his home town. During this time period Naka worked long hours at various menial jobs. Around 1983, Naka saw that Sega was looking for programming assistants and decided to apply. After a brief interview, he was hired and his first project was a game called Girl's Garden, which he and a colleague created together as part of their training process.
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Hirokazu Yasuhara is a Japanese video game designer and Sonic Team's 2nd Assistant President. He designed the gameplay and stages of the majority of the initial Sonic the Hedgehog video games for Sega Mega Drive based on technical demos and engines coded by Yuji Naka and characters designed by Naoto Ōshima. In spite of Yasuhara and Oshima's key creative roles, programmer Naka has since become identified as the creator of Sonic the... Hedgehog by the mainstream gaming press. Yasuhara stayed with the franchise until 1994 though he worked on Sonic 3D Blast in 1995, Sonic Xtreme in 1996 and Sonic R in 1997 and with Sonic Team until 2002. He then joined Naughty Dog, working on the Jak and Daxter series and 'Uncharted', collaborating once more with former Sega employee Mark Cerny. He was the senior design director at Namco Bandai Games America. In April 2012, Yasuhara joined Nintendo where he accepted a position at Nintendo Software Technology.
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Takashi Iizuka is a Japanese game producer, game director, game designer, level designer, scenario writer and currently the head of Sonic Team. His first collaboration with Sega involved working with STI on Sonic 3 and Knuckles as a designer. Later, he helped supervise Traveller's Tales with the development of Sonic R. In Japan he was lead designer for Nights into Dreams. He directed and headed up lead design for Sonic Adventure as well . In... 1999, he and a small part of Sonic Team moved to San Francisco to establish Sega Studio USA, in order gain feedback from the western market. Over in the U.S. his team worked on the international release of Sonic Adventure. Afterward, his team started to develop their own games, where he was the director and lead designer for Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog, and Nights: Journey of Dreams. In an effort to further broaden Sonic's appeal to western markets, Iizuka gave western developer, Backbone Entertainment, a shot at developing Sonic titles under his team's supervision for the PSP console.
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