After 23 years, Super Smash Bros. Melee modders have finally made an old April Fool's Joke a reality, by finally adding Tails & Sonic into the game.
If you were a Nintendo fan or an avid reader of Electronic Gaming Monthly back in the day, you may recall coming across a section in the April 2002 issue of the magazine that claimed to include information on how to unlock Sonic & Tails in the popular fighter (two characters that never ended up making into the final game's roster).
Written by EGM writer Chris "CJ" Johnston (of "mind-boggling effects" fame), the brief box out stated that in order to unlock the two Sega characters in the Nintendo title you needed to achieve a high score of 20 KOs in Cruel Melee mode, before beating the pair in a handicap match. This would then reportedly unlock the two as playable characters on the main select screen, with another surprise awaiting you upon finishing classic mode.
Of course, this was all meant to just be a bit of playful fun on behalf of one of the magazine's writers, but as evidenced by the letters they received in the next issue, it all got a bit out of hand very quickly, with people sending in mountains of message to check whether there had been a typo or if they were doing anything wrong that was preventing them from unlocking the characters. Nintendo even reportedly changed the FAQ on the official Smash Bros. website in the aftermath to debunk that Sonic characters (listed as Sonic and Knuckles) were included in the game, perhaps hoping to put a stop to the rumours.
Because of all of this attention, EGM ended up feeling pretty bad about the whole situation, agreeing to start a new competition to send 10 free copies of Sonic Adventure 2: Battle for the Nintendo GameCube to anyone who posted a tape of them "bust"-ing out the best Cruel Melee match. But a lot of fans never forgot about this April Fool's joke, with people still occasionally bringing it up online, even today.
Sonic & Tails did eventually end up making appearances in later titles in the Super Smash Bros. series, with Sonic appearing as a playable fighter from Brawl onwards, for instance, and Tails making cameos here and there in the form of Mii costumes and trophies. However, up until recently, there wasn't any way to play as both characters in Melee, similar to what was outlined in Johnston's original article. This is where Akaneia comes in.
Akaneia is a mod for Super Smash Bros Melee that uses a tool called m-ex to add more content to the original GameCube title. It's been around for several years, but as spotted by one of our tipsters, recently got a new update (update v1.0.0) that finally brings Tails into the game as a playable character (alongside a list of other great improvements). As Sonic was added a couple of years ago (as part of v0.9 of the mode), this now means that both characters are finally available for players to enjoy.
You can download the latest build of Akaneia here. Here's some footage of Tails in action: