Mikel
From Sonic Retro
Mikel is a long-time member at the Sonic Retro forums, and a member of the Sonic community from 2003 - Present. He is the creator of Sonic Zeta Overdrive, which is a cancelled hack of Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
He is an intermediate at Motorola 68000 ASM, and has posted guides on how to
History
Early Years (1998-2004)
Mikel became a fan of Sonic the Hedgehog in 1998, when he first watched The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. Four years later, around June/July of 2002, Mikel started visiting Sonic websites, including a website in which he can't remember the name to with a page about "Sonic's 11th Anniversary". A year later, on February 15, 2003, Mikel started to visit Sonic Fan Games HQ, where he first learned about Fan games. He started to lurk at many message boards, such as SWS2B, Sonic CulT and Area 51. He later joined the Sonic scene through Sonic CulT under the name cubakaf on May 15, 2003. He stayed as an active member of the community until his account on SWS2B was deleted, on Febuary 11, 2004.
Following this event, Mikel left the community, only to return through the Sonic Robo Blast 2 Community under the name Mikel93 eight months later.
Return to SWS2B (2005-2006)
After spending some time on the SRB2 message boards, Mikel came back to SWS2B on June 13, 2005 under the name MikelAngel. Some time later, he posted with horrid grammar and spelling mistakes.
On November 26, 2005, he posted a level art contest, which ultimately failed; two days later, it was trashed. On December 3, 2005, Mikel was banned from SWS2B for both this childish act and overall inability to interact as a competent member of the forums.
After getting banned from SWS2B, he was later seen on the SSRG forums until the board backup was corrupted in 2007.
Entering the bridge (2007)
Two years after getting banned from the Sonic 2 Beta forums, Mikel joined The Glowing Bridge in April of 2007. When the board was converted to MyBB, he continued to lurk the forums until June 29, 2007, when he released Sonic Zeta DX (A shitty hack, now that he thinks of it) to the public. The release of his hack started massive amounts of controversy, as it contained stolen music from Sonic Megamix. This ultimately led to him getting banned from The Glowing Bridge the same day.
After getting banned from The Glowing Bridge, Mikel came back to the SSRG four months later under a new name, DarkGhost.
Today (2008-Present)
On Febuary 22, 2008, Mikel came back to the Sonic community through the Sonic Retro IRC channel. After being approached by Tweaker about another chance at membership, he was added to the Trial Members group. On March 9, 2008, he became a full member.
Two months following his approval, Mikel revealed his new hack to the public, Sonic Zeta Overdrive, and entered it in the Sonic the Hedgehog Hacking Contest. Even though his hack didn't win anything, it was well received by many members and praised.
On August of 2009, Mikel entered his hack again in the 7th Hacking Contest, where he won the Knuckles Trophy for the addition of Bean the Dynamite. He had also submitted his hack to the Sonic Amateur Games Expo in the years of 2008 and 2009, and he had entered again for the last time for both, SAGE 2010 and the 8th Sonic Hacking Contest. While never announced, Mikel had actually cancelled Sonic Zeta Overdrive in secret back in 2011 due to him focusing on completing school, leading up to him graduating from high school in 2012. Since 2011, Mikel has become more active in the Fighting Game Community, effectively decreasing his activity within the Sonic community since then.
As of 2025, while Mikel is no longer as active as he previously was prior to his high school graduation, he can still be seen hanging around the Sonic Fan Games HQ community from time to time.
Aliases
Mikel has gone through six different names in the past few years.
Current Aliases
- Mikel - This is now his primary alias, used from Feburary 2008 - Present
- DarkGhost - He rarely uses this alias now
- MikelAL93 - His secondary alias, it is primary used for SNK-related communities
Past Aliases
- Cubakaf - First alias Mikel had, used from May 2003 - February 2004, named for his deceased father's home country.
- MikelAngel - The alias Mikel had when he rejoined SWS2B, used from June 2005 - (March?) 2007
- Mikel93 - This used to be his primary alias in the Sonic community, but he currently uses it for PSN
Projects
For the past few years, Mikel has been working on a couple of projects (Mostly rom hacks).
Current Projects
- Sonic Zeta Hyperdrive (Head Director, level designer, programmer; Reboot of Sonic Zeta Overdrive for the 2013 version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2)
Project Assistance
- Sonic Thrash (ASM work (Mostly related to music))
- Sonic the Hedgehog: Redemption (Music work)
Abandoned Projects
- Sonic Zeta DX (Head Director, programmer; Cancelled)
- Sonic Zeta Overdrive (Head Director, level designer, programmer; Cancelled as he had stopped working on it prior to graduating from High School in 2012; now repurposed as Sonic Zeta Hyperdrive)
- Unnamed Sonic 3K hack (Head Director, level designer; Cancelled, might revisit someday)
Involvement
Since joining the Sonic Community in 2003, Mikel has been a member of these forums since:
Current community status
- Member of SSRG - (2003-Present)
- Member of Sonic Retro - (2008-Present)
Former community status
- Former Member of The Glowing Bridge - (2007)
- Former Member of SWS2B/The Sonic 2 Beta Page - (2003-2005)
- Former Member of the Sonic Robo Blast 2 forums (2004-2019)
- Former Member of Sonic CulT - (2003-2004; 2009)
Trivia
- He is Cuban on his deceased father's side, as well Costa Rican and Italian on his mother's side.
- Unfortunately, his father died on October of 2024.
- He is one of the very few Hispanic Users in the Sonic community.
External Links
- Mikel's Profile
- Mikel's Twitter profile (no longer active as Mikel left Twitter on October of 2024)
- Mikel's YouTube channel
- Mikel's Twitch channel