Sonic Crackers/Hidden content

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Alternate Sega logo sequence

Sonic Crackers uses the same Sega logo sequence used in Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master, and just like that game there is an alternate Sega logo sequence that will occasionally appear after a soft reset where an enlarged Sega logo scrolls across the screen.

Sonic Studium?

For the longest time, people have opened up the Crackers ROM in a hex editor and noticed one small detail: The ROM header says "Sonic Studium," compared to "Sonic Crackers," as the title screen of the game says. Which name is "correct" is yet to be identified; however, what does "Studium" mean? Is it a typo? Is it nonsensical? Is it a joke?

SpinelSun pointed out on the forums that this was most likely a mere translation error. A common way things are mistranslated to and from Japanese is to use a romanization table letter-per-letter, which doesn't conform exactly to English or Japanese. Japanese has syllables with vowels after every consonant (barring a single letter 'n'). As such...

Stadium would become スタジアム, literally "Sutajiamu" (Japanese has no 'di' syllable; 'ji' is in its place). This is where the error occurs: in Japanese, the vowel 'a' is pronounced as in the English word "father". As such, the スタジ would sound very much like the English word "stud".

Thus, the name is in fact Sonic Stadium. "Studium" is a mere translation error by someone who does not understand both English and Japanese well enough to ascertain the original word. Other examples include Amy (エミー, Emī) being referred to as "Emy" in the Sonic CD PC OMAKE directory, and Knuckles (ナックルズ, Nakkuruzu) as "Knack[les]" in the Sonic the Hedgehog The Screen Saver SONICSS\ICON directory.

Interestingly, the translator knew to convert the 'ji' back to 'd' at least. The error would have been more apparent if the header said "Sonic Stujium". He/She most likely looked up both "stujium" and "studium" in a dictionary, where he/she would have learned that "studium" is in fact a word in Latin, meaning "zeal".

If this wasn't compelling enough evidence, an excerpt from the Sonic Mars script shows Sonic Stadium as a title under the "Future SEGA" products category, along with Sonic 3+Media:Sonicmars49.png.

Unused content

Art

Art	Description
	Characters that are loaded into the VRAM for the title screen and menus but are not used, including a complete set of lowercase letters.
	Throwing animations. Though throwing is implemented, only the arms change in this build. Similar graphics are used by Mighty in Chaotix, though only the last two frames are used. Tails appears to be stumbling in his animation, which lines up with him having the weakest throw in all the Chaotix prototypes where he's still functional.
	Pulling animations. Chaotix has them, but characters just stand still in Sonic Crackers despite the hold mechanic having been implemented at this point.
	Hanging or climbing animations. Only Sonic has a full climbing animation. Neither of these sprites were adapted for Mighty in Chaotix.
	Wall Jump animations for Sonic, with associated graphics of him "launching" from a wall. Similar graphics are used by Mighty in Chaotix (though the first frame is only seen in prototypes, and only the second frame sees use in the final game).
	Flying animations for Tails, unused as Tails cannot fly in this build. While the flying sprite is the same as in Sonic 2, the "tired" animations are unique to this build. These animations would later be modified and repurposed for the remasters of Sonic CD, Sonic 1 and Sonic 2.
	Jumping animations for Sonic and Tails for use in the field levels. Unused as they cannot jump there.
	Extra HUD text. Chaotix uses some of these terms in its Special Stages.
	A second, "thinner" HUD.

Level chunks

Art	Description
	Unused stars that were meant to be along with the clouds. Apparently were going to be with the night palette.
	Unused tubes from the carnival level.