Sonic the Hedgehog 4 already exists on SNES

You’ve no doubt already seen the video of an “officially” released Sonic 4 that’s been floating around, but if you haven’t, check it out. It seems Sega was a little too late to the part when it announced Sonic the Hedgehog 4. A sneaky “developer” by the name of Twin Eagles Group already made it … for the SNES.

This not-quite-legally distributed game was a surprisingly expert hack of Speedy Gonzales: Los Gatos Bandidos. Since the game was already like a stripped-down Sonic title, it wasn’t too much of a stretch to replace Speedy with Sonic and throw in some rings. Oh, and he rescues little Marios trapped in cages for some reason. 

The sound effects are bizarre and they didn’t change the music, so Sonic struts his stuff to digitized mariachi bands. Meanwhile, on the Game Boy, the hackers skipped Sonic 5 and went straight to Sonic 6! You can see a video of that after the jump. Man, Sega has some catching up to do.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4: 1996? SNES? Gameplay Video? [Ygro Wok’s Destructoid CBlog]