Sonic began to rewind time in his head.

2006. the game came out and it was received even worse than ‘Shadow the Hedgehog (2005)’, at first I couldn’t believe the reviews. Was it so bad, did I completely fail to see that? How could a game I made be one of the worst games of 2006?

My standing in SEGA would change after that, it wasn’t an immediate or sudden change but more gradual. Polanzo slowly moved me away year after year from being the face of SEGA, after all, what good can come to the brand of the company if its face made one of the worst games of all time? I would start getting smaller budgets, lesser media attention and the internet made endless memes and videos mocking me.

I was soul crushed at first, I was in an even worse state than when ‘Sonic Heroes(2003)’ came out. However, unlike that time there were no friends around to comfort me. Something I took for granted, I thought Tails would always be there no matter what I did or said. Never take the people you call friends for granted.

I ruined our friendship and he was gone. I tried to reach out to him but he didn’t even want to see my face. Whenever there were meetings at SEGA that we had to attend together he would avoid eye contact with me. I found his ignoring me unbearable but I brought it upon myself.

I was thinking okay at least I have Amy with me, she loved me unconditionally, and she would be there for me to lean on. I still remember that night I came earlier than usual from SEGA and saw her packing her things. I tried to stop her but she was determined to see it through.

I asked her “Why? Why are you leaving me?”

“I don’t love you anymore, I haven’t loved you for a very long time. The person I fell in love with has been gone for a very long time.”

That was that, I would never see Amy again. She disappeared from my life. At first, I didn’t even realize what her leaving me meant. Every day I was in a gigantic penthouse with an enormous amount of wealth all alone. Nobody to say welcome home or to keep me company.

Looking back at a distance our relationship had been broken for years now. I was so self-absorbed that I didn’t even consider how unhappy Amy was. I miss her so much even now I miss her and I wished I had changed or at least said something to make her stay. Was there anything to even say at this point?

For days I would spend my time just sitting alone in complete silence, wondering how and where it all went wrong. Who can I even call for help, who can I even talk to, who would even want to talk to me after everything? There was no one. No one I could call a real friend.

Was this what I wanted? One could look back now and say this was what was expected from my behavior toward everyone I knew but I didn’t want to be alone.

SEGA was planning to distance themselves from me and they were already making preparations that would not be apparent immediately. Polanzo saw ‘Sonic 06’s’ that even though the sales dropped in comparison to ‘Sonic Heroes(2003)’ they were still decent. He saw room for more games and the board of directors with his suggestion signed off on another game to be made. Everything went off as business as usual for now.

The game in question is known as ‘Sonic Unleashed(2008)’. The making of this game brought major changes to the franchise. The group I will refer to as ‘friends’ (Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Rouge, Cream, basically almost everyone that had appeared in the ‘Sonic games’) decided to go on a coordinated strike, with the exception of Shadow but I will get to him later.

The strike happened because no one wanted to return to work on ‘Sonic Unleashed(2008)’, or to be more specific no one wanted to return to work with me. I was the problem, everyone had had enough of me and demanded their contracts be renegotiated. They all wanted complete termination of any and all responsibilities and obligations to the ‘Sonic franchise’.

President Polanzo at first said he was going to be tough on the strike, sue everyone and that they were going to be back to work in no time. In the end, the strike drew the attention of the press. Polanzo caved into the pressure and offered the ‘friends’ certain concessions.

Everyone was still obligated to participate if a video game demanded their presence in the story for cutscenes and other story-related material. However, they had no more gameplay obligations which was the most important thing. Many of them including Tails requested the right to never have to be in the same room with me for recording cutscenes.

Amy was particularly harsh, she demanded the right to never have to be in the SEGA building if I was there.

‘Friends’ also still had to make appearances in SEGA crossover games and promotional media, of course with the same right to never be in the same room as me or at the very least to not have to talk with me.

These concessions did come at a cost though, each of the ‘friends’ had to forfeit their merchandising rights which were where the majority of everyone’s income came from. For every piece of merch sold you were given a big percentage if your face was a part of it.

The group was so adamant to never have to work with me, that they willingly gave up their biggest source of income. Polanzo was very happy with this deal, to him it was no big deal if they wanted to never talk to me as long as he was able to secure SEGA’s financial interests.

This was the reason for the lesser role everyone had in the games that would come. For ‘Sonic Unleashed(2008)’ I had finally gotten what I wanted. A game where I was the sole main character, I had total control and could direct it any way I wanted to.

With ‘friends’ severing their ties with me and with ‘Sonic 06’ being criticized for having too many characters anyway, for the company it logically made sense.

It felt strange to be able to finally do what I desired, a game that would be truly my own. Finally, I could prove that Sonic games didn’t suck and I wouldn’t be held back by other people’s ideas, no need to compromise or to share.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

I was finally “Unleashed” you could say, or that’s how I felt at first. Soon an empty feeling in my stomach started to arise, a realization of where I was in life.

Completely alone. I would go to work, and talk to no one, at least not talk that wasn’t anything work-related or small talk. Go home, sleep, go to work, rinse, and repeat.

Before the strike when Amy left me, I held out hope that maybe I could reconcile with some of them but it was too late, nobody wanted to even look at my face much less hear any notion of being friends again.

All of them moved on with their lives and branched out to different things.

Knuckles had attempted to go solo with game development, and in the end, he was able to make an indie company with the idea to make the game he always wanted. Since he was going to make it independently, he would have a modest budget but he was able to have full control. The game he made was an RPG and he released it in 2013.

Unfortunately, he made a grave mistake and published his game exclusively for the PS VITA. Life can truly be cruel sometimes, yet again like in the days of ‘Knuckles Chaotix (1995)’ when his game was on a system nobody owned and thus nobody played his game, the fate of his RPG was exactly the same.

The PS VITA was a commercial failure and with the system, his game would die, with no audience to play it or see it. After that his indie company went bankrupt and I have no idea what he has been doing since then.

As for Shadow, he was absent from the strike and he was absent from work too. Polanzo quietly renegotiated his contract, Shadow would be replaced with a look-alike in the coming games, and his career was killed with that. Why did Shadow not strike or protest his new contract?

Apparently, he could not take the harassment he received from both ‘Shadow the Hedgehog (2005)’ and ‘Sonic 06’ that he became a shut-in. He did not leave his home and he wanted to not be a public figure anymore. When I say a shut-in I mean he rarely left his home.

Tails would attempt to start a business with the capital he accumulated during his years of working in the video game industry. I don’t know much about the details, but the gist of it is that it was going great until some changes happened in the market and his business collapsed. I don’t know what the business was about or why it failed I never asked him to this day.

As for Amy, I don’t even know a single thing about her after she left me. What was she doing, how was she doing, I knew nothing.

While working on ‘Sonic Unleashed (2008)’ I wanted to be able to prove to myself and to everyone else that I could still make good games. As part of the script I wrote in Tails and Amy, I thought maybe they would mellow out, maybe I could try to see them, maybe they would forgive me but they stuck to their guns and the game went along without us ever interacting.

The actor who played Chip heard all the rumors about me and kept me at a distance, he did not want to be my friend.

There was also that SEGA crossover tennis game that Ulala stared in. All the popular SEGA characters were invited to be a part of this project, from ‘Jet Set Radio’, to ‘Super Monkey Ball’ etc.

I hoped that this would be a chance to maybe make some new friends and while I did get on great with Ulala we weren’t real friends you could say. It was a very surface-level friendship and everyone else was on a strictly business level with me. Tails and a Shadow look alike were also a part of this cross-over game.

Unlike me, Tails was able to make friends with all of the cast members and everyone liked him. I was so bitter about the whole situation I couldn’t stand it.

The worst day was when the project was finished. Tradition compels all of the crew to go on an expensive dinner together. Everyone was there who worked on the game including Tails of course.

During the dinner, people were laughing and having fun but I was not. Tails decided to not even acknowledge I was there, every time I said something he would pretend like he didn’t hear anything and would move the conversation forward. The whole time he avoided any eye contact with me. It was like a dagger to the heart.

My best friend wouldn’t even look at me. Not that I didn’t deserve but I still felt horrible.

I told myself at the time this would all be worth it. After all, this was the price I had to pay to get my vision to be uncompromised. What a delusional idea but I genuinely thought that this solitude would be worth it once ‘Sonic Unleashed (2008)’ releases.

I would finally get those 10/10s, I would finally be number one and my reputation would be saved.

Once the game was released I remember going on the internet to read the first reviews hoping this would finally get that validation and vindication I was searching for since ‘Sonic Heroes(2003)’.

What I got was only disappointment and rejection. The game averaged around a 6/10 by most critics. What a joke.

I had severed all my connections just to be slapped with mediocre scores.

I was so convinced in my greatness that I thought that the previous bad reviews were flukes or that others were to blame. Was I just a bad game director and were my masterpieces mistakes?

I fell into despair after this game. What was the point of my work, what was the point of my life’s journey?

For who’s sake was I being so awful to everyone around me and for what was I so adamant about doing these games alone?

In the next years, I would go on spending sprees. I wanted to get the attention of other people, but I couldn’t make friends the regular way and I believed that I should try a different approach.

I could show off what I have, lots and lots of money. I would throw elaborate expensive parties, buy random people expensive gifts, and so on. Maybe this way I would gain some friendships. Unfortunately, none of my new friends were real friends. They were there cause I was showering them with money.

In the coming years, I would make some games that did get good scores but for every good game I made, I made also a game that was horrendous in the eyes of the public. I could never go back to the reputation I had once before and was doomed to slowly fizzle out.

No matter what scores I got, each game would get smaller budgets, less attention and gaps between new Sonic games would widen. Fewer games were made and when they were they got less marketing and in turn, would sell less thus the franchise was slowly dying. It’s been years since the last Sonic game.

In those years along with my spending spree, I turned to drinking. Very heavily. That period feels almost like a haze looking back on it. I barely remember much of anything. I would mostly sober up at the times I had to direct a game, but since that became less frequent, I fell deeper into this pit.

On one of the days I was sober, I ran into Tails. I tried to start a conversation and we talked for a bit but it soon ended very quickly since he had somewhere to go.

Finally, I was running out of money, I had to sell my penthouse and I spent that money too. It seemed like it was all over. I had lost the final thing that I had to show for, my wealth.

Then that day came along. I was dead drunk, I have a lot of blank spots in my memory, but according to what Tails told me and other people I sat in my car and in that drunk haze I crashed.

Some say that it was a suicide attempt since it seemed like I deliberately crashed the car. Frankly, I don’t remember what I was thinking. Nobody was hurt.

The police arrested me and I was in jail. They gave me the right to one phone call. Who was there to call? Apparently, I had called Tails, I said a lot of things I don’t remember but whatever I said had a great effect on him.

He paid for my bail and decided to help me. Since I crashed into a public wall, I had to pay for the damages I caused and my car was beyond repair.

There went the last bit of money I had, after that, I was flat-broke, homeless and unemployed. But Tails surprised me once more and he invited me to stay at his place until I get back on my feet.

Obviously, I wasn’t going to be a parasite I wasn’t going to live on his charity and started job hunting. Lifelong hero and game director don’t give you many opportunities, so the only thing I could get was a job at Smile Burger.

I never asked Tails what was the thing I said to him over the phone, frankly, I was so embarrassed by the whole situation that I wanted to forget that day.

Tails had decided to enroll in college to get a degree. After his business collapsed, he too like me didn’t have many opportunities. Unlike me, he had a lot of money saved, so much so that he could pay himself tuition and live modestly off his savings until he gets a degree.

So here we are. Life for me finally had a kind of normalcy, a routine and while I hated my job, I repaired our friendship. We are living together for the time being and we get along great.

Things aren’t the same as the old days, the days from before everything went south, but we are once again close. If there is one thing I’m glad about how my life played out, it’s that I reconciled with my best friend.

My job is terrible, but it won’t stay like this too long. It’s been years since the last Sonic game but SEGA will call me eventually. I learned a lot these years, I’m not the same fool I was, Sonic the Hedgehog will return!