Let us hope they get it right this time.

I mean, anyone who knows Sonic very well from the old school days can clearly see that it’s the old school trademark!

idk. It just bothers me when people say it’s not Sonic when it obviously is. *sigh*
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I agree tottaly IT’S CLEARY SONIC, next thing I agre with some poeple here who sad that they should bring back the BONUS STAGES, tjose are super and SO ADDICTIVE , but I don’t have to tell this things to SEGA they are going to do it I KNOW, THIS IS GOING TO BE THE BEST SONIC GAME EVER, you’ll see!

It’s obviously Pikachu in a sombrero.

It’s a common misconception, even mentioned in Sonic’s current Wikipedia article. However, there’s no proof, no definitive source (please correct me if I’m wrong; if there is proof, I’d like to see it).
The misconception about “Mr. Needlemouse” goes back to a sketch sheet by Naoto Oshima that was shown in some Making Of Sonic video. On the sheet, you can see various versions of Sonic, plus the writing “Mr. harinezumi”, with “harinezumi” being spelled in Japanese Katakana. Now, harinezumi simply means “hedgehog”. So, if that writing really indicated the codename, then it was either “Mr. harinezumi” or “Mr. hedgehog” and NOT “Mr. Needlemouse”.
Here’s a picture of the sheet:
http://info.sonicretro.org/images/c/c4/S1concept-Needlemouse.jpg

It is true that in Japanese, the word “harinezumi” is a compound, consisting of the parts “hari” (needle) and “nezumi” (mouse, rat***). However, it makes no sense to split the word into its parts and translate each part separately, unless you want to be punny. Consider that the English “hedgehog” itself is a compound: hedge – hog. You wouldn’t translate that separately into another language either. By the way, that’s also a reason why I never had a problem with the term “werehog”, unlike some of those pathetic critics that wanted to show of their etymology 101 knowledge. Why should it be a problem that “were” used to mean “man”? If you complain that werehog literally means man-pig, then you should also complain that hedgehog literally means bush-pig, more or less. ;P

*** remember Erazor Djinn calling Sonic a rat in Sonic and the Secret Rings? It’s a pun in the Japanese version because of the harinezumi – nezumi connection. Not so much in the English dub. They could have used “hog” there instead of “rat” to preserve the pun, but instead they went for a literal translation.

Now, wqho wants to start a petition to bring back Hidden Palace Zone? Come on…