Editing Honey the Cat

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{{Infobox character
|title       = Honey the Cat
|image       = Honey the Cat.png <!--Please do not replace this image with the one from the original "Sonic the Fighter" as that is not official and leftover data character. Also, no JPG or JEPG images. Thank you!-->
|caption     = Honey the Cat, from [[Sonic the Fighters (2012)|''Sonic the Fighters'' {{C|2012 version}}]].
|first       = [[Sonic the Fighters (2012)|''Sonic the Fighters'' {{C|2012 version}}]]
|media       = 
*[[Archie Comics]]
*[[IDW Publishing]]
|realcreator = Masahiro Sugiyama<ref name="design">{{Cite web|last1=Almaci|first1=Ali Hasan|last2=Kemps|first2=Heidi|title=The Last Arcade Crusaders Sega-AM2 Interview|publisher=1Up.com|url=http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=1&cId=3149135|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604202319/http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=1&cId=3149135 |date=31 March 2006|archivedate=4 June 2011|accessdate=12 February 2022|quote='''Hiroshi Kataoka''': I think Honey's character designer probably slipped her in there. He's actually the one responsible for the whole concept}}</ref>
|species     = Cat
|gender      = Female
|fur color   = Light amber
|hair color  = Black
|skin color  = Peach
|eye color   = Black
|attire      = 
*Red headband
*White hairbands
*Red and black dress with white laces
*Red and white gloves
*Red and black boots
|alignment   = Good
|affiliation = [[Honey's Brand|Her Brand]]
|skills      = 
*Hand-to-hand combat skills
*High agility
*Harnessing [[Chaos Emerald energy]]
**[[Hyper Mode]] initiation
|likes       = 
*Fashion designing<ref name="ESI"/>
*Promoting her brand
*Her friends
|moves       =
*[[Guard|Barrier]]
*[[Crouch]]
*[[Glide]]
*[[Honey Glider]]
*[[Horse Kick]]
*[[Shadow Punch]]
**[[Honey Special]]
**[[Shadow Followup]]
*[[Uppercut]]
**[[Dual Hyper Upper]]
**[[Hyper Uppercut]]
|dislikes    = [[Doctor Eggman|Dr. Robotnik]]
|issues=*''[[IDW Sonic the Hedgehog Free Comic Book Day 2021|Sonic the Hedgehog Free Comic Book Day 2021]]'' {{Cameo}}
*''[[Sonic the Hedgehog: Amy's 30th Anniversary Special]]'' {{Cameo}}}}
{{Quote left|She's a high-spirited fashion designer who battles to promote her brand. Are the wings on her back part of her costume, or are they real? Only she knows the truth.|Description, ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog Encyclo-speed-ia]]''<ref name="ESI"/>}}
{{Nihongo|'''Honey the Cat'''|ハニー・ザ・キャット<ref>{{cite web|url=http://blog.sega.jp/amcvt/?p=527|title=Vol.15 *ハニー・ザ・キャット*|publisher=[[Sega]]|accessdate=22 February 2019|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121230210852/blog.sega.jp/amcvt/?p=527|archivedate=30 December 2012|language=Japanese}}</ref>|Hanī za Kyatto}} is a character that appears in the [[Sonic the Hedgehog series|''Sonic the Hedgehog'' series]]. She is an anthropomorphic cat and fashion designer<ref name="ESI">{{Cite book|first1=Ian|last1=Flynn|last2=[[Sega]]|title=[[Sonic the Hedgehog Encyclo-speed-ia]]|publisher=[[Dark Horse Books]]|date=8 December 2021|page=20|chapter=Sonic Arcade Classics|isbn=978-1506719276|quote=She's a high-spirited fashion designer who battles to promote her brand. Are the wings on her back part of her costume, or are they real? Only she knows the truth. Honey is an homage to the fighter Candy from Fighting Vipers, which was the spiritual forebear to Sonic the Fighters. She wasn't an available fighter until her data was restored for the digital rerelease on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in 2012. To choose her, highlight Amy and press Start.}}</ref> who competed in a fighting tournament for the [[Chaos Emerald]]s and the right to destroy the [[Death Egg II]] to promote [[Honey's brand|her brand]].<ref name="ESI"/>

Honey first appeared as an unimplemented character in ''[[Sonic the Fighters]]'', but was later made a fully incorporated character in the [[Sonic the Fighters (2012)|2012 port]].

==Concept and creation==
[[File:Stf-honey-in-fv.png|thumb|225px|left|Honey, from ''Fighting Vipers''.]]
Honey was designed by Masahiro Sugiyama,<ref name="design"/> the character designer for both ''[[Sonic the Fighters]]'' and the game ''[[wikipedia:Fighting Vipers|Fighting Vipers]]'', the latter which uses the same engine that ''Sonic the Fighters'' was built on. According to an interview with Hiroshi Kataoka, director of ''Sonic the Fighters'', Honey is based on the [[w:c:sega:Candy|character of the same name]] from ''Fighting Vipers'' (Honey's name in English territories was "Candy"). Kataoka confirmed that since ''Sonic the Fighters'' was initially designed by simply placing ''Sonic'' characters in the ''Fighting Vipers'' engine, Honey was put in the game by her original designer as a test.<ref name="design"/>

Honey in ''Fighting Vipers'' has the same poses and look as Honey the Cat, even having a special attack called "Cat Punch" in her move set, along with several other cat-themed move names. These cat-themes may have been what inspired Sugiyama to make Honey a cat in ''Sonic the Fighters''.

==Appearance==
[[file:Honey the Cat-charselect.gif|left|thumb|225px|Honey on the character select screen, from [[Sonic the Fighters (2012)|''Sonic the Fighters'' (2012)]].]]
Honey is an anthropomorphic cat with close-lying light amber fur, a peach muzzle, and long black hair that she keeps in voluminous pigtails. She also has two triangular and perked ears with peach canals, a small black nose, large sharp black eyes, thin arms and legs, and a slim tail.

Honey's attire is very detailed. She wears a red hairband and elaborate white and laced cloth-like hair barrettes around her ponytails, alongside a red dress with poofy shoulders, black straps with silver buckles on the cuffs, a black collar, and white laces on the lower rim. She also has a pair of white angel wings on her back, although only Honey herself knows if they are real or not.<ref name="ESI"/> Her dress also has a black sash around the waist, and a black area on her front skirt with white fasteners. Additionally, she wears white gloves with red backs and laced cuffs, black arm wrappers around her wrists, and pointy red and black high-heeled boots.

==History==
===''Sonic the Fighters'' (2012)===
In [[Sonic the Fighters (2012)|''Sonic the Fighters'' (2012)]], Honey had been entrusted to safeguard one of the [[Chaos Emerald]]s to keep [[Doctor Eggman|Dr. Robotnik]] from abusing it. Eventually though, Dr. Robotnik constructed the [[Death Egg II]], which he used to deploy hordes of robots to lay the world to waste with. Soon after, Honey joined the fighting tournament held to decide which one among the Chaos Emerald guardians was the strongest, if only to promote her brand.<ref name="ESI"/> If Honey could defeat all the contestants, she would earn the right to use all the Chaos Emeralds for [[Miles "Tails" Prower|Tails]]' single seat [[Lunar Fox]] and travel to the Death Egg II and destroy it.

At the end of the tournament, the victor used the Chaos Emeralds to go to the Death Egg II and made it self-destruct moments after escaping it.

==Personality==
Honey is a high-spirited fashion designer who is all about self-promotion,<ref name="ESI"/> having participated in a fighting tournament herself to promote her brand.

==Powers and abilities==
Honey has efficient skills in hand-to-hand combat, enough to let her fight on the same level as profound fighters like [[Sonic the Hedgehog]] and [[Knuckles the Echidna]]. Her fighting style involves a series punches and jabs combined with wind-up punches, a jumping uppercut, and a variety of high and fancy kicks.

Honey is very fast and agile. She can jump several meters into the air, kick opponents in a fluid bucking-like fashion, run up along walls, and swiftly circle around and strike opponents so fast that she appears as a blur. With the wings on back of her dress, she is also able to [[glide]] through midair like Knuckles. Honey also has the ability to harness the [[Chaos Emerald energy|energy]] from the [[Chaos Emerald]]s to bolster her innate abilities, allowing her to enter [[Hyper Mode]].

===Transformations===
====Hyper Mode====
{{Main|Hyper Mode}}
A weaker variant of the [[super transformation]]. Honey is capable of using this mode for a brief time on her own by drawing power from the [[Chaos Emerald]]s. In Hyper Mode, Honey's speed and attack power are greatly increased at the expense of her defenses.

==''Sonic the Fighters''==
Although she was scrapped from the arcade version of ''[[Sonic the Fighters]]'', Honey's data still exists in the game, which was discovered through hacking after the release of ''[[Sonic Gems Collection]]''. Her in-game data is near complete, and she has a complete move set primarily based on Knuckles', allowing players to hack the game's data and play as Honey in normal gameplay, albeit with a few glitches. With her re-integration into the [[Sonic the Fighters (2012)|2012 remaster]] of ''Sonic the Fighters'' on the [[Xbox 360]] and [[PlayStation 3]] however, all her glitches and problems were fixed.

===Character data===
During the development of ''[[Sonic the Fighters]]'', Honey's character data was based on [[Amy Rose]]'s. This is displayed when playing as Honey in hacked gameplay, where when she is smashed by anything, her outfit will turn into Amy's for a few seconds. If smashed again, her outfit will return to normal. Also, while her squished head and hand models load fine, the rest of her body was not left in the game. This being a pretty good indicator of how far into development Honey was at the time. Additionally, her pre-fight stance is the same as Amy's, this being a curtsy before assuming her fighting position, while her victory pose is based on one of [[Miles "Tails" Prower|Tails]]'. This is corrected in the 2012 re-release, though her pre-fight stance and victory pose remain unchanged.

Another hacked gameplay video of Honey reveals a second victory pose for her, where she stands in a position that resembles [[Sonic the Hedgehog|Sonic]]'s, only she does not make a peace sign with her fingers.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Sonic the Fighters - Honey vs Bean|url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRUv3t3OHok|publisher=Rob Krum|work=YouTube|date=10 September 2011}}</ref> Additionally, the pose reveals another eye glitch; here, her eyes become completely white.

===Eye glitch===
In the hacked gameplay of the original [[Arcade system|arcade]] version of ''[[Sonic the Fighters]]'', there is a glitch that causes one of Honey's eyes to look towards the player while the other looks at her opponent. There is no known method of fixing it properly, not even in recent emulators. However, the cutscene before entering [[Death Egg's Hangar]] after beating [[Metal Sonic]] seems to fix it.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Honey eye fix|publisher=Sonic CulT|url=http://www.sonic-cult.org/imagebinx/stf/stf-honey-eye-fix.png|format=png}}</ref>

===Loading Portrait===
[[File:Honey_loading_screen_2012.png|thumb|225px|Honey's loading portrait, from the [[Sonic the Fighters (2012)|2012 remaster]] of ''[[Sonic the Fighters]]''.]]
In the hacked gameplay of the original [[Arcade system|arcade]] version of ''[[Sonic the Fighters]]'', Honey does not have any artwork for the pre-level scenes. Instead, it defaults to [[Doctor Eggman|Dr. Eggman]]. This is fixed in the 2012 remaster where she is given her own loading portrait, though it only shows a white silhouette of Honey's fighting pose in the "cat paw" and bent leg stance.

===Move set===
In the hacked gameplay of the original [[Arcade system|arcade]] version of ''[[Sonic the Fighters]]'', Honey possesses a complete move set, albeit with moves borrowed from other characters because Honey did not have a move set of her own when the game was released, so the programmers "borrowed" attacks from the other fighters to compensate. She has the same kicks and fighting stance as [[Sonic the Hedgehog|Sonic]], though in the character select screen, the cutscene before fighting Eggman, when she executes a few moves, and the name entry screen, her stance is the same as her source character's. Some of Honey's punching type moves are from [[Miles "Tails" Prower|Tails]], while her head clap move is from [[Bark the Polar Bear|Bark]].

In the [[Sonic the Fighters (2012)|2012 remaster]] version the majority of Honey's moveset is copied from Knuckles with the exceptions of her running attacks and air punch attack, which are copied from Amy, and the lack of any of Knuckles' [[Spin Attack|spin]] based moves. Some of these attacks are renamed to better fit her character, such as her version of the Knuckle Glider attack copied from Knuckles being named the Honey Glider, or her version of Amy's Hip Attack being named the Running Bootie Bop, which is also the name of a similar attack performed by her source character from Fighting Vipers. She also has some modified attributes compared to Knuckles. Her model is smaller, being more comparable to Tails and making her harder to hit at the cost of reducing her range. Her wall climb is slower than Knuckles' and her dodge followup attacks do not move her as far. Most notably, Honey's weight is extremely high, equaling that of Doctor Eggman, which greatly reduces the distance she travels when launched by attacks and affects what combos she is susceptible to.

===Mirror fighter===
The [[mirror fighter]] version of Honey is the opponent fought in the hacked gameplay of the original ''[[Sonic the Fighters]]'' when both players choose Honey. While the second player will normally be a grayscale version of the character, due to Eggman zapping them with a machine, Honey's mirror fighter has her own palette. This includes blonde hair, a blue dress and hairband, a white muzzle, and lilac fur. Mirror Honey has the same move set as the original Honey, and thus can be used in mirror matches. She is also the only mirror version character in the game to actually be colored. In the 2012 re-release of ''Sonic the Fighters'', mirror fighter Honey serves as an alternate color for Honey.

[[File:Stf-fv-intro-shot.png|thumb|225px|The mirror version of Honey, from the [[Sega Saturn]] version of ''[[wikipedia:Fighting Vipers|Fighting Vipers]]''.]]
The mirror fighter version of Honey also appeared in the short intro clip of the [[Sega Saturn]] version of ''[[wikipedia:Fighting Vipers|Fighting Vipers]]'', alongside a toy version of the regular Honey.

==Relationships==
===Friends/allies===
*[[Amy Rose]]
*[[Espio the Chameleon]]
*[[Knuckles the Echidna]]
*[[Miles "Tails" Prower]]
*[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]

===Enemies===
*[[Doctor Eggman|Dr. Eggman]]
*[[Fang's Gang]]
**[[Bark the Polar Bear]]
**[[Bean the Dynamite]]
**[[Fang the Hunter]]
*[[Metal Sonic]]

==In other media==
===Books and comics===
====Archie Comics====
{{Main|Honey the Cat (Archie)}}
[[File:AStH Honey Profile.jpg|thumb|150px|left|Honey the Cat, from [[Archie Sonic the Hedgehog Issue 268|''Sonic the Hedgehog'' #268]].]]
In the ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie comic series)|Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' comic series and its spin-offs published by [[Archie Comics]], Honey is the founder, CEO, and designer for [[Honey Clothing|Honey Brand Clothes and Accessories]]. During the [[Shattered World Crisis]], she participated in the [[Chaos Emerald Championship]] to promote herself, going up against the likes of [[Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie)|Sonic]], some of the [[Freedom Fighters (Kingdom of Acorn)|Freedom Fighters]], [[Knuckles the Echidna (Archie)|Knuckles]] and the [[Hooligans (Archie)|Hooligans]].

Before her debut in the comics, Honey was only restricted to cameo appearances. Due to an exceedingly huge amount of fan requests, however, she was made an official character in the comics.

====IDW Publishing====
=====''Amy's New Hobby''=====
[[File:IDWHoney.jpg|thumb|142x142px|Honey the Cat, from ''[[IDW Sonic the Hedgehog Free Comic Book Day 2021|Sonic the Hedgehog Free Comic Book Day 2021]]''.]]
Honey would appear outside of [[Amy Rose|Amy]]'s house and read one of her many comic stories that [[Miles "Tails" Prower|Tails]] showed to the entire village. While there, she noticed Amy acting distraught when [[Sonic the Hedgehog|Sonic]] took a look at her work.<ref>''[[IDW Sonic the Hedgehog Free Comic Book Day 2021|Sonic the Hedgehog Free Comic Book Day 2021]]'', "Amy's New Hobby"</ref>

=====''Amy's 30th Anniversary Special''=====
Honey was one of the many people who got captured by [[Metal Sonic]] and imprisoned in a [[Capsule]]. However, she and everyone else were freed by Amy Rose, [[Bark the Polar Bear]], and [[Ray the Flying Squirrel]].<ref>''[[Sonic the Hedgehog: Amy's 30th Anniversary Special]]''</ref>

==Trivia==
[[file:SonicTheFighters-honey-heart.png|left|thumb|120px|Unused expression, from ''[[Sonic the Fighters]]''.]]
*To select Honey in the [[Sonic the Fighters (2012)|2012 remaster]] of ''[[Sonic the Fighters]]'', the player has to go to [[Amy Rose|Amy]]'s picture and press Start. Doing so unlocks both Honey as a playable character and the achievement, "Honey the Cat."
*Honey's wings on her back are the ones on the rubber dress, or "fairy suit", that her ''Fighting Vipers'' counterpart made herself.
*One of Honey's moves, which includes her head slide and hip attacks which she has borrowed from Amy, is similar to a move used by her source character called "Bootie Bop". She uses Honey's "horse kick" move too, although the other characters in ''Sonic the Fighters'' possess this attack as well.
*The song "[[Sunset Town]]", which could be found in the original ''Sonic the Fighters'' data, ''[[Sonic the Fighters Sound Tracks]]'', and ''[[Sonic Gems Collection]]'' would have presumably been played in Honey's stage.
*Honey is the first cat-species character in [[Sonic the Hedgehog series|''Sonic the Hedgehog'' series]], although due to Honey not originally making the cut in ''[[Sonic the Fighters]]'', [[Big the Cat]] officially holds the title.
*Overall, Honey is one of the only hackable characters in the series to appear after her unofficial debut. She appeared in ''Fighting Vipers'' and also made several cameos in the [[Archie Comics]] series before she made her official debut.
*When Honey was originally discovered through hacking, her pigtails and cat tail were not seen due to an emulation glitch. This was fixed in newer emulators and the HD release, although her losing animation still has them.
*Honey had no available information about her character, such as personality or background, due to her nature as a dropped character. When adapting her for [[Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie comic series)|the Archie comic book series]], [[Ian Flynn]] took the information from the original Honey from ''Fighting Vipers''. This personality and background ended up approved in the ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog Encyclo-speed-ia]]'', also written by Flynn.
*According to Ian Flynn, using Honey apart from cameos is complicated due to the fact that she is an homage to the ''Fighting Vipers'' character Candy.<ref>{{Cite web|title=BumbleKast Mini! for April 24th, 2024 - Ian Flynn Q&A Podcast|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObouKyc-vng|publisher=BumbleKing Videos|work=YouTube|date=24 April 2024}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist|2}}
{{Fighters info}}
{{Sonic game characters}}
[[de:Honey the Cat]]
[[es:Honey the Cat]]
[[fr:Honey the Cat]]
[[nl:Honey the Cat]]
[[pl:Honey the Cat]]
[[ru:Кошка Хани]]
[[Category:Cats]]
[[Category:Females]]
[[Category:Heroes]]
[[Category:Playable characters]]
[[Category:IDW Publishing characters]]