Sure, I could get into what little is known about Sonic Crackers, but perhaps the most remarkable thing about it is how an extremely early alpha build of what would become Chaotix only plays marginally worse than the finished product.

It's still neat as hell that this is out there. I think the Sonic series has played a significant role in people's fascination with video game prototypes, and this might just be the earliest available build of a Sonic game, being in an even more bare and unplayable state than the infamous Simon Wai beta. The most complete zone, which is an industrial themed stage with a vertically oriented level structure, has several variations depicting it at different times of day, and much like Chaotix, it has you darting back and forth as you scale repeating chunks of geometry. It makes sense here where you'd want to pitch the whole dual momentum gimmick, but it's a little depressing to know level design didn't evolve much.

The second zone is carnival themed and largely unplayable due to busted collision issues, and there's a couple overhead maps that seem like they would serve a sort of "adventure field" function but were ultimately scrapped. That's about it. Very novel as a proof-of-concept, though I'm surprised anyone at Sega looked at this and thought "yeah I'll greenlight that" instead of immediately throwing whoever programmed this garbage into an agony booth. I suppose condemning Chaotix to the 32X is meeting in the middle.

It's surprising that none of this has been mined by the bloodsuckers at Sonic Team, who have apparently scratched through the bottom of the barrel and are now incorporating even more obscure beta/prototype elements in their games in a desperate attempt to claw at whatever nostalgia is left. It's not that they have no new ideas, just that 80% of them hinge on you remembering a thing and clapping because you saw that thing again. But maybe it's just a matter of time. I feel like one of these two Zones is either going to show up in a future game or someone will yank all the assets out and do a fan game that serves as a sort of "what if" look at Sonic Crackers had it been built upon in a more linear fashion.

Not rating this because c'mon, it's an alpha build.

A very early prototype for an unreleased Sonic game, with the concept becoming Knuckles’ Chaotix. Sonic and Tails are tethered by rings and, just like Knuckles Chaotix, you have to use this to get around the level. The jump, hold and pick up are all on the same button, and there’s no way to recall the other player.

There are only two levels in the prototype. The first is a tall level where you have to get to the top of a rocket. It looks lovely and is a lot off fun to play, with the game being very speedy and being able to run up tall walls with ease. It’s also available in different colours, reflecting different times of the day, so it seems possible that each level was going to be set throughout a day to make them look a bit different.

The other level is a very long linear level, although this has sections with no collision and parts where you can’t progress without going into debug mode.

It’s definitely interesting to see the early ideas for Chaotix.