Tails And The Music Maker is a 1994 video released for the Sega Pico, being a spinoff of the Sonic the Hedgehog series. It is one of two Sonic games to be released for the Pico, the other being Sonic the Hedgehog's Gameworld, which was released in 1996.
The game is centered on Sonic's sidekick Miles "Tails" Prower. There is no plot to speak of, as the game plays as a pseudo platformer. The object of the game is to learn scales, tempo, rhythm and about instruments, and then match the music to the instruments to make Tails progress forward. The player may also create his or her own music.
Tropes:
- A Day in the Limelight: One of three spinoff titles (the other two being Tails Adventure and Tails Skypatrol) that Tails got to himself.
- Demoted to Extra: Both Sonic and Dr. Robotnik/Eggman only get what amounts to brief cameo appearances in this game.
- Edutainment Game
- Green Hill Zone: The series most famous level makes a routine appearance as the setting of the game.
- Lily-Pad Platform: One of the mini-games involves Tails and an army of frogs hopping across lily pads as music plays, and when the music stops, whoever is on the orange lily pad loses.
- Logo Joke: When you start up the game, Tails flies past the Pico logo, leaving a trail of musical notes behind him.
- Loose Canon: The game recycles elements from the Genesis Sonic games, but uses Tails' design from the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon.
- No Antagonist: While Dr. Eggman does get a cameo appearance on page 3, he's just a background setpiece and never interacts with Tails. The game is otherwise just a basic music teaching tool with no real conflict.
- No Fourth Wall: Tails and the game directly teach the player how to make music via a pseudo-platformer.
- No Plot? No Problem!: There's no conflict or story going on—its just an educational game where Tails teaches kids how to make music. Even Eggman's cameo role doesn't have him directly interact with Tails, but keeps him as a background setpiece. Not even the manual has a plot for the game.
- Spin-Off: Of the main Sonic the Hedgehog series, although it uses Tails' brown-furred design from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.
- Shout-Out: One of the mini-games that can be played is a clone of Breakout.
- Standard Snippet: Staple Public Domain tunes like "On Top of Old Smokey" appear.
