Sonic’s circle of friends and foes has grown huge as of recent, but there’s a cheeky purple weasel who dates all the way back to Sonic Triple Trouble (Or Sonic & Tails 2 if you hail from Japan) who has been long since forgotten by SEGA since Sonic the Fighters. Fang the Sniper (or Nack the Weasel, again, depending where you are from!)  has become a cult fan favourite, particularly it seems, amongst like-minded merchandise hunters!

First 4 Figures, the creators of the Sonic, Super Sonic, Metal Sonic and the upcoming Knuckles statues amongst many other Sonic-themed figurines have posed a question on their facebook page…would you buy a Fang the Sniper / Nack statue? Now while this question is likely purely out of interest, how cool would it be to see this character immortalised in figurine form?

If you’re interested, head over to the facebook group and cast your vote – who knows what might come of registering interest!

I’ll take three – 2 regulars, and a special addition…with a working cork gun and light up Marvelous Queen please!

The Fighters Plush Range.

Although the West seems to be getting its fair share of merchandise nowadays, it wasn’t always that way. Sure, in the early 90’s us Americans and Brits were treated to a whole load of Sonic and Tails plushes, a couple of different comic series and the odd figurine now and again, but once we hit 1995, the widespread interest in Sonic seemed to die off. The West was pushed into Sonic-merch limbo until 1999 when Sonic Adventure came around. This was not the case over in Japan…

One of the most interesting periods of Sonic merchandise history (be it for all the wrong reasons) has to be the Sonic the Fighters era. I remember popping my pocket money into a Fighters machine in Metroland and squealing with delight at the plethora of colourful characters I could choose from. I think I would have been even giddier if I’d known what the Japanese were being treated to – some of what are now some of the scarcest pieces of Sonic merchandise!

A lot of collectors are mad for the range of plushes that were released for the game. In actuality, there were a number of different plush lines produced for the game – including a full-size set, and a plush keyring set. What is so unusual about these sets are that they produced EVERY character in the game. Japanese fans were not only treated to cuddly versions of the playable characters, but also a Super Sonic, Eggman himself, and the Super-rare Metal Sonic, who even has a metallised effect to his body!

It would also be worthy to point out that Fang the Sniper, Bean the Dynamite, Bark the Polar Bear and Espio the Chameleon and also got soft-toy incarnations for this collection; in each case being their first, and most likely their only outing as plushes. These hardly ever make an appearance on auction sites, but when they do the mad fans with mega-bucks to burn usually bid sky-high amounts. It’s not unusual to see them fetch in excess of $200 (about £150) a piece.

I personally have yet to see a Metal Sonic going, so I dare not hazard a guess at a price! The keyring plushes don’t tend to fetch as much due to their size, so if you don’t have as much cash to splash, you can sometimes pick yourself up a Tails or an Amy for much less – although expect competition for the other rarer characters to drive the prices up.

As crackers as the up-tempo Fighters soundtrack is, it did actually make it into print as a CD. The inlay of the booklet is wonderfully adorned with the 3D images of the characters from the game (with another epic Eggman pose) with stage names given crazy suffixes (Mushroom Hill: Come on Mr. Sonic!).

It’s not too unusual to see a couple of these pop up on ebay and the likes; prices however do vary wildly depending on the condition of the CD and the case, as well as whether or not the treasured obi (spine card) is also intact. If the spine card isn’t something you’re worried about, £35 ($50) isn’t an outrageous estimate of what you could expect to pay to snag a copy of this album.

Unbeknownst to most, Sonic the Fighters also had a promotional T-Shirt produced. Apparently coming in a “Free Size” (Or “One size fits none”) it also features more pidgin English with the slogan “Sonic’s Fighting Action” alongside portraits of the 8 characters in the game. So, if you want a T-Shirt with Fang on it, this is your best bet!

Have you ever managed to grab yourself a bit of Fighter’s delight? Is there anything you have that we haven’t mentioned? These are still hot items on my own wish list, but for the time being I will just have to make do with my Fang plush and matching keyring…beware his felt cork gun.

After much hype and hearsay about the return of what some deem to be a cult character from the Sonic Universe, it looks like the Hatted Weasel/Wolf character, Fang the Sniper, WILL NOT be appearing in the up-and-coming multi-platform game Sonic Unleashed.

The SEGA Blognik, run and maintained by the ever present ArchAngelUK, made a post earlier afer enquiries had been made with SEGA’s brand manager in regards to the rumours about the return of Fang the Sniper: ” I asked the brand manager directly. The answer was “who’s he?” “.

So unfortunately kids, it looks like we aren’t going to see the return of Fang. Disappointed? Perhaps, perhaps not. On the positive side, the images released from Leipzig looks promising, so hopefully the lack of cork guns won’t ruin what looks to be a promising game.

I seem to have misplaced my DS…if anyone sees it, let me know.

Props to Mr. AAUK for the info!

The Leipzig Games Convention takes place tomorrow, and we can expect plenty of fresh information on Sonic Unleashed. According to the TalkPlayStation Blog however, one reader (called ‘Dan’) couldn’t contain his secrets any longer and apparently spilled some massive story-based beans. Among the unsupported claims is talk of Sonic and the Werehog having separate ‘Super’ forms, Tails appearing with the Tornado and something about a Chaos Golem. Here’s TalkPlayStation with some more tidbits:

The returning character is called Fang the Sniper. He’ll be reinvented like the Chaotix were when they were reintroduced in Sonic Heroes. Fang the Sniper is hired to destroy the Werehog with the promise that he can get the Emerals from his dead body. He becomes an occasional rival in three or four boss battles. In their final battle, he reaches the last Emerald before Sonic and has an adverse effect.

Again, there are no official sources confirming this, so don’t go over the top with this newfound information, kids. There’s a chance that reader ‘Dan’ may just be, you know, making it up. But GC’s only tomorrow, so we’ll know soon enough.

Source: Sonic Unleashed Story Leaked – TalkPlayStation