The extremely rare Waku Waku Sonic Patrol auto arcade title launched in Japan in the early 1990s, but never made it to the U.S. According to Sonic Retro blogger GeneHF, players piloted a cop vehicle and assisted Sonic in his police duties.
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Waku Waku Sonic Patrol vehicle was primarily aimed at kids, so don’t expect any challenging, high-speed platforming. It’s a historical curiosity simply for being an early title associated with Sega’s blue mascot.
Waku Waku Sonic Patrol vehicle was originally released in Japan back in 1991. The game, long thought to have been lost, will be available to play shortly on the MAME arcade emulator.
Which Sonic fans might want to anyway; it’s the first game in the franchise to ever feature voice acting. It was played in a booth shaped like a vehicle and was played with a steering wheel. The cabinet was only $350, but shipping and other costs brought the total cost to over $5000. That makes the recent acquisition of an original arcade board something truly special, because now it will finally be playable as a ROM along with the next MAME release.
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The effort to resurrect Waku Waku has been something of an global affair, with Sonic Paradise finding a partially-working model in the dark recesses of a Spanish shopping mall.
