Roger Hector, who was previously the director of SEGA Technical Institute, has reflected on Michael Jackson’s involvement with Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Hector is also credited as executive coordinator on that game.
Jackson’s music contributions have long been a topic of discussion as there’s been much uncertainty over the years. For some time SEGA even said it didn’t work with the legendary singer while others that worked on the game said his work ended up in the final game.
Hector shared his account of things in an interview with Retro Gamer. Although this is also something that’s been debated, he maintains that Jackson’s work was removed and swapped out following child sexual abuse allegations.
Hector said the following in the magazine interview about Michael Jackson’s involvement with Sonic 3:
“I get this call from one of Michael Jackson’s people, telling me Sonic was Michael’s favorite game and could he come to SEGA and meet the people who made it. He came in after hours, I gave him a tour and introduced him to the creators of the Sonic games and he was thrilled. You could see he was a total Sonic fan – he was really, really excited. So one of our guys says, ‘Why don’t you write the music for the next Sonic?’ And he says, ‘OK.’ Everyone’s jaw dropped. I’m thinking, ‘How are we gonna work this out?’ but basically, he did write the entire score for Sonic 3.
I had a CD of it! It was all in the game and we’re just a few weeks away from delivering the final code so it can be produced for Christmas that year and then stories start appearing in the papers about Michael and, you know, him being the bad guy with kids. Everyone panicked. I mean, we had kept it a secret because it was going to be this huge, surprise announcement that Michael was doing the score, then boom, this thing comes out about him.
SEGA of Japan made the decision to take [his music] out… I had a composer on my staff, who’d done a bunch of videogame music in the past, called Howard Drossin. I told him he had to replace the audio [for Sonic 3], basically 16 weeks’ worth of work, in a week and a half. I said we’d slide food under his door but he couldn’t leave the office. And he did it! He was an amazing guy and has gone on to do a lot of movie music in Hollywood but he got his break at STI as a last-minute replacement for Michael Jackson!”
Sonic 3 & Knuckles can be played on Switch now via Sonic Origins, which also features the original Sonic The Hedgehog, Sonic The Hedgehog 2, and Sonic CD. There’s also the “Plus” expansion containing twelve Sonic Game Gear titles.
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