Fan remakes of old Sonic games are nothing new. Last year, for instance, saw the release of Noah Copeland's fantastic remake of Sonic Triple Trouble, a largely forgotten Sonic game for the Sega Game Gear.
Recently, however, we were excited to learn about the existence of yet another incredible project that is taking a lesser-celebrated Sonic title — this time Sonic 3D Blast (or Sonic 3D Flickies' Island as it was called in Europe and Japan) — and reimagining it in order to give fans a new way to play. The Sonic Jam Remastered developer White Feather is responsible for this new remake, which is titled Sonic 3D Flickies' Island Remake.
In case you're unfamiliar with the original, Sonic 3D Blast was an isometric Sonic game for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis and Saturn and was released between 1996 and 1997. The British studio Traveller's Tales' was responsible for its original development, based on an initial concept from Sonic Team that saw you travel across various levels to collect small birds called Flickies and seven chaos emeralds to defeat the evil Dr. Robotnik.
An early video of the project shared on Twitter shows off the fancy new starting screen with a 3D-rendered island visible in the background. It then loads into a remake of the Green Grove Zone, the opening stage of Sonic 3D Blast, where a bunch of Saturnesque models of Sonic and Tails run and jump around the picturesque location. Interestingly, it seems the game may have two camera options, with the video showing a more traditional isometric perspective (similar to the original) as well as a fully-controllable camera.
The remake is currently in the pre-alpha stage. If you want to keep up to date on the project, we recommend following its main account SonicSaturnSega on Twitter.