The theme of Green Hill Zone in the original Sonic The Hedgehog now has its own official song and lyrics, thanks to its original composer.
While Masato Nakamura is known to Sonic fans as the composer of Sonic the Hedgehog and its sequel, he’s best known by Japanese music fans as the bass player and co-founding member of J-Pop band Dreams Come True, who have been around since 1988, having sold 50million records worldwide.
To celebrate Sonic’s 30th anniversary, Dreams Come True has released a new song called ‘Tsugino Seno! De – On The Green Hill’, which not only transforms the iconic theme from the original game’s first zone into a four-minute song, but also gives it lyrics, with vocals sung by Miwa Yoshida.
The video makes a number of visual nods to the blue hedgehog, including a boy dressed in blue running with red shoes. While the lyrics are in Japanese, VGC has also provided a translation.
The song was actually first announced during an intermission of the Sonic 30th anniversary symphony concert streamed back in June, while a snippet of it had in fact been used for a Japanese green tea commercial (thanks, Sonic Stadium).
The song is available to stream on Spotify in two versions – the normal, slowed paced “DCT” version as seen in the above clip, and a faster remixed “Masado & Miwasco” version that sounds closer to the original Mega Drive game.
Recommended
Former head of Sonic Team and original Sonic programmer Yuji Naka has also lent his support to the song, writing on Twitter: “Sonic 1’s Green Hill Zone song will be released next week. Sonic is on the back of the CD. Sonic-like SE [sound effects] also ringing, and I feel quite nostalgic. It is unique to the composer of Sonic 1. It feels like Sonic’s 30th anniversary. I’m happy.”
🦔 Sonic 1's Green Hill Zone song will be released next week. There is Sonic on the back of the CD. Sonic-like SE is also ringing, and I feel quite nostalgic. It is unique to the composer of Sonic 1. It feels like Sonic's 30th anniversary. I'm happy.https://t.co/VmCtsMBj0l pic.twitter.com/98nLl9FdpW
— Yuji Naka / 中 裕司 (@nakayuji) September 13, 2021
The anniversary of Sega‘s mascot also saw the release of Sonic Colours Ultimate, a remaster of the 2010 Wii game, although it had been marred by reports of serious bugs and crashes on the Switch version.
A patch has been released addressing these issues, while more patches are set to roll out in the future for other platforms.