Sonic The Hedgehog 2 was a game that really redefined the standards for a blockbuster video game release – its extravagant hype campaign and co-ordinated international release were very uncommon at the time, but they paid dividends for Sega as the game sold millions of copies worldwide. But the creation of that game was fraught – a large number of concepts were scrapped outright, a prototype cartridge was stolen from a toy fair in New York and major changes were still being made during the final week of development.
One of the big problems was the choice to develop the game at Sega Technical Institute in the USA, with a mixed Japanese and American development team – in Retro Gamer 175, game designer Hirokazu Yasuhara told us that, "Trying to establish a multicultural development team was meaningful, but it should not be done for a project with a very tight schedule."
