After the overwhelming success of the first Sonic game, a sequel was inevitable. However, a slight hitch occurred when Yuji Naka, the game's lead programmer left Sega of Japan, due to various disagreements with the company. He was persuaded to join Sega Technical Institute instead (with the additional promise of a brand new Ferrari, might I add), which operated in the US, independently of Sega Japan. As it happens, Hirokazu Yasuhara, the original game planner for Sonic 1, also joined the company as part of a temporary scheme to pass wisdom on to the less experienced members of STI. Sonic needed a sequel, and with the two main men behind the original now working for STI, they were allowed to produce Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the Sega Megadrive. Soon, a competition was held inside the company to create a new sidekick to accompany Sonic in his adventures. Yasushi Yamaguchi, Sonic 2's lead artist, created Tails the flying fox (or kitsune) though he insisted that he be called Miles. A compromise was eventually made, and "Tails" was given as a more commonly used alias to his full, play-on-words name, Miles Prower (get it?). If you spot the word "Miles" appearing here and there in the game, it was probably placed by Yamaguchi, thinking that he can subtly insert it into the player's subconscious without anyone realising.

A few things to point out. Firstly, the US version of the storyline fails to account for the legend of West Side Island, and even its name. It also doesn't mention anything about Sonic arriving in the Tornado, or the explosions. Again, Eggman is referred to as "Dr. Robotnik", whose intrusion is somewhat more subtle. Like in Sonic 1, he's been snatching the residents of the island and putting them inside his devilish badniks, though still has plans to use the Chaos Emeralds to power his Death Egg, and already has control over factories and refineries on the island. Notice that there are now seven Chaos Emeralds, as opposed to six in Sonic 1. This number remains for all of the following main games that they feature in, and it's commonly believed that the seventh one was lost, until now. There's also a debate over whether Tails is supposed to be a fox with a freaky mutation, or a kitsune, which is a mythological creature in Japan that looks like a fox, but has multiple tails. It supposedly gains a new one every hundred years, which would account for the twin tails, but not his supposed age of only 8. Lastly, those legends of West Side Island do sound intriguingly similar to those of Knuckles' lost race of people, detailed in the back-story of Sonic 3, and the underlying storyline of Sonic Adventure, later on in the series. Hopefully you spotted that yourself!

Although some maintain that the original is still superior, I think most of them would still agree that if it isn't better than Sonic 1, it comes damn close as a more-than-worthy first, proper sequel.