In an interview with Video Games Daily, Sonic Team’s Takashi Iizuka has confirmed rumours dating back to E3 in June, which claimed Knuckles the Echidna and Amy Rose will be appearing in the DS version of Sonic Colours. Iizuka reveals that both characters will feature in the game’s story mode, but like Tails, they will not be playable.

The DS version introduces the other characters like Knuckles and Amy as kind of the guest characters. They don’t have any direct influence on the gameplay but they act as the narrative to the background of the story, so if you play the DS version you get a better understanding of the story for Sonic Colours.

Iizuka also gives us some insight into how Sonic Team implements fan feedback from previous Sonic games into upcoming titles:

The team always looks at feedback immediately after we release a game and they are always looking to the pros and cons of the feedback and try to address those through the next game developed. They don’t really take it fully because they have their own thoughts but they do look at feedback and try to input as much as possible.

That feedback is actually the story of how Sonic Colours came to be. The players had always wanted a pure Sonic action game. They always wanted to play as Sonic and they always wanted the high-speed action stages. That is how we started the project for Sonic Colours — that was the most important feedback to look into. With Sonic Colours we wanted the stage to start with high-speed Sonic action and end with high-speed Sonic action. We didn’t want to break it up by introducing other characters or other kinds of action so the feedback has really influenced this game.

For the full interview, head over to Video Games Daily