Honey the Cat
From Sonic Retro
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| Honey the Cat |
|---|
| First seen: Sonic the Fighters (2012 re-release) |
| Species: Cat |
| Gender: Female |
| Created by: Mashahiro "T" Sugiyama |
Honey the Cat is a yellow cat-like character with black hair who appears in Sonic the Fighters, based on Candy from Fighting Vipers (Candy's name in Japan was Honey). However, she was never seen in the Arcade version and remained unused in the game data, never to be discovered until after the release of Sonic Gems Collection.
Contents
Concept and creation
Honey was designed by Mashahiro "T" Sugiyama, a character designer for Sonic the Fighters and Fighting Vipers, the latter which uses the same engine that Sonic the Fighters was built on. In an interview with Hiroshi Kataoka, he confirmed that since Sonic the Fighters was initially designed around Fighting Vipers by simply placing Sonic characters in it, the character was modeled around her[1].
The Honey that appears in Fighting Vipers has the same poses and look, and even uses a special attack called "Cat Punch". This may have been the inspiration for making her Sonic counterpart a cat.
In Sonic the Fighters
Her in-game data is nearly complete, and has a complete moveset primarily based on Knuckles', allowing players to hack the game's data and play as her in normal gameplay. Her model when squashed by the Piko Piko Hammer reveals she was based on Amy. There is a bug in her eye system, causing one eye to look at the camera but the other to look in the opposite direction, making Honey look strange in some scenes; the cutscene after defeating Metal Sonic does not have this eye problem, though. She does not have any artwork for the pre-level scenes, so it defaults to Eggman. Unlike other characters, when both characters select Honey, there is an actual alternate costume for her instead of a grayscale version. This alternate design was used in a short clip intro for the Sega Saturn version of Fighting Vipers. Honey's model was removed completely from all versions of Sonic Gems Collection.
In the Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network ports of the game released in November 2012, Honey has been added as a secret selectable character with what little data that was missing for her added in, including a proper VS. screen image. She can be selected by moving the cursor over Amy and pressing the 
button, then selecting her. Doing this also unlocks an achievement/trophy. She is also playable in the version included in Lost Judgment.
Rediscovery
Unused code belonging to Honey the Cat was first unearthed in summer 2005 by the Sonic CulT forum user sonicblur. Because Honey's character model data had been completely wiped from the Gamecube version of the game there was initial confusion about who this character could be until another user, Cryomancer, correctly identified Honey as being from Fighting Vipers. After tinkering with the original arcade game, sonicblur was able to recover Honey's model and the first images of her in-game appearance started to circulate among the Sonic fan base.[2] Honey quickly became a cult fan-favorite, with fan art of her being posted on sites such as DeviantArt. However, timing issues caused by ElSemi's Model 2 emulator led to Honey being rendered without her pigtails, a fact that didn't become publicly known until 2007. By this time her no-pigtails and white ear tuffs version became well established in fan art.
In a March 2006 interview for 1Up.com, Hiroshi Kataoka, President of Sega's arcade amusement departments, was asked about the "hidden character modeled on Honey" in Sonic the Fighters. Kataoka, clearly hearing about this for the first time, at first assumed there was leftover Fighting Vipers code that ended up being carried over to Fighters. After the interviewer brought up that Honey was modeled in Fighters as "a little animal", Kataoka instead theorized that her character designer was responsible for slipping her inside Sonic the Fighters, as he was the one who originally inserted crude models of Sonic characters into Fighting Vipers.[1].
Separately from these events, the AM porting team led by Tohru Murayama was working on bringing Sonic the Fighters to the PS3 and Xbox 360 as part of the Model 2 Collection. In a December 2012 press release, Murayama mentioned how their analysis of the arcade version's code led to them uncovering "some kind of Honey girl in here". This came as a huge surprise to Murayama, as he was a huge fan of Sonic the Fighters and even owned an actual Model 2. Murayama ended up being further surprised when an online search for Honey the Cat revealed to him that she was already "well known overseas, with fan art showing up when you search for her". After an internal discussion and contacting Daichi Katagiri, who was in charge of the arcade version, Murayama's team decided to go forward with re-implementing her into the PS3 and Xbox 360 port of Sonic the Fighters. In his concluding words, Murayama wondered about the mystery of why she was rejected from appearing in the original arcade version.[3].
In other media
Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie comics)
In the Sonic the Hedgehog comics published by Archie Comics, Honey the Cat's first cameo appearance was on the cover of May 2012's Sonic Universe #40, months before she was reintroduced in official videogame form. Due to this her cameo design borrowed from existing internet fan art, depicting her without pigtails and with blue eyes (the blue eyes element first appeared in fan art drawn by Trakker, an early and prolific Honey the Cat artist on DeviantArt). She was soon made into an official character due to an exceedingly huge amount of fan requests, debuting in January 2015's Sonic the Hedgehog #268 as the founder, CEO, and designer for Honey Brand Clothes and Accessories. Honey's final Archie design now included her pigtails and gave her orange eyes, though her clothes were visually simplified from her more complicated and armored design from Sonic the Fighters. She also received a two-tone colored tail, similar to Blaze's and Big's. This was, according to Ian Flynn, to keep her in line with the modern Sonic look. During the Shattered World Crisis, she entered the Chaos Emerald Championship as a fighter to promote her brand, much like her human counterpart from Fighting Vipers, and faced off against Sonic, Knuckles, some of the Freedom Fighters and even Team Hooligan (Fang, Bean and Bark). Her last appearance in the Archie Sonic comics was on the cover of the eventually canceled Sonic the Hedgehog #293. Writer and colorist Aleah Baker confirmed at one point that there were "long-term plans" for Honey prior to the comic's cancellation.[4]
Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW comics)
In the Sonic the Hedgehog comics published by IDW, Honey the Cat first appeared in Free Comic Book Day 2021. She could be seen outside of Amy's house reading one of her comic stories that Tails showed to the entire village. This time, Honey's IDW design mimics very closely her visual appearance in Sonic the Fighters. According to Ian Flynn, using Honey apart from cameos is complicated from a legal standpoint as she is essentially a homage to the Fighting Vipers character, which means she requires special permission from SEGA for use in the comics.[5]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Interview: Hiroshi Kataoka (2006-03-31) by 1UP.com
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20150725121847/http://forumsx.sonic-cult.org/index.php?showtopic=1241162 (archive.today)
- ↑ Press release: 2012-12-18: Vol.15 *Honey the Cat*
- ↑ http://bumbleking.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8626&start=15&sid=c96c68d4fc08ba07fc8a20791987094e (Wayback Machine: 2016-02-08 00:06)
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObouKyc-vng (Ghostarchive)