INFO BURST

Format: Video game
Initial Release Date: 1991
Feature characters: Sonic the Hedgehog
Villain: Doctor Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik
Other Characters: Animal Friends (Flicky, Pocky, Picky)
Locations: Seemingly South Island (Green Hill Zone)
Items: Sonic Patrol Car
Continuity: Video Games
Synopsis: Sonic, serving as a traffic officer, drives around town in his special police car (equipped, naturally, with a turbo function) hoping to spot any traffic violations. For maximum success, Sonic must drive carefully, ensuring not to collide with other road users, allow his friends to cross the road safely, and only use his siren when necessary. Naturally, Doctor Eggman arrives to threaten the safety of other road users, but Sonic soon sends him packing.
Notes: The first time Sonic and Eggman have voice acting.

CREDITS

Voice of Sonic: Takeshi Kusao
Voice of Doctor Eggman: Masaharu Sato
Staff currently unknown

Review

It didn’t take long before Sega realised the mascot potential of Sonic as a character far outstripped just video games. Taking a step into the world of kiddie ride-ons, Sonic becomes one of the boys in blue (rather literally, in fact) as a traffic officer in this short but sweet little pseudo-game. While you could call this an arcade cabinet, in actuality you’d see this in all sorts of locations. Think of the kind of places you see kiddie rides- usually supermarkets and shopping centres- and then imagine in their place a big police car with Sonic wearing a police hat. That’s the sort of thing we’re talking about here.

As a result, WakuWaku Sonic Patrol Car is an experience only designed to last around a minute or so. You pop in a coin, your little’un has a fun minute’s dopamine rush with Sonic and sirens and then you go on about your day. Of course, in the internet age, the experience is a tad different as adult players play this in an attempt to get the best possible rating of five stars! Because, yes, even though this is designed with very small children in mind, there are still multiple ways to play and the game can unfold differently in accordance with this.

For instance, it’s actually possible for Doctor Eggman to escape if the player is inactive for long enough. He’s pretty easy to hit, mind you, so you’d almost certainly have to be intentionally not trying to get him for that to happen. But better driving and better adherence to the highway code will see Sonic earn more stars at the end of his patrol. While it’s certainly unlikely this was a coin-muncher back in the day, now that the game can be found relatively easily online it’s certainly a neat challenge to try and get the best possible through line and smoothest Eggman battle to try and get the maximum score.

Gameplay aside, the presentation is wonderful. The music is a slightly altered version of the Green Hill Zone theme from both of the major Sonic the Hedgehog 1991 releases, with a triumphant fanfare version of the title screen music from those games at the end of the game. The art is beautifully vibrant, with characters leaping off the screen and Sonic himself being absolutely loaded with personality and plenty of expressive reactions to his surroundings. To cap things off, Sonic and Eggman both have voices for the first time in the series. Players not fluent in Japanese won’t be able to get the fullest out of the actors’ performances, but it’s plainly evident that the voices fit the characters, with Sonic having just the right energy to get across his energy and friendliness.

While this game was only designed as quick distraction for very young children, there’s definitely something to be said for the adorable charm of it, from Sonic’s exuberance to the teeny little siren noises of his police car to Eggman seemingly deciding being a nuisance on the road is the worst he can come up with for the day. This won’t take you long to get through, but perhaps aiming for the perfect five-star run could be a time-killer on modern hardware.