Flicky

Flicky is a fictional female bluebird who debuted in the arcade game Flicky as the main character and has since become a part of the Sonic the Hedgehog series as a species commonly used for "organic batteries" in the evil Doctor Eggman's robots, also known as Badniks. They also play integral parts in Sonic 3D Blast and Sonic Adventure. Flicky's original designer was Yoji Ishii, a member of Sonic Team until August 1999.

Early appearances
Flicky first appeared in the eponymous game Flicky, released for Sega arcades in 1984. Flicky was the game's main character, and had to collect her children (all called Chirp), while avoiding enemies Tiger (a tabbycat) and Iggy (an iguana). The game was popular, and Flicky made subsequent cameo appearances in many Sega games in the late 80's, including:
 * TeddyBoy Blues
 * SDI
 * Flash Point
 * Super Monaco GP (in the Arcade version only, when the words "Game Over" are shuffling by letters, Flicky can be seen flying by)
 * Bloxeed

Sonic the Hedgehog to Sonic & Knuckles
Flicky is perhaps most known for her cameos in the Sonic the Hedgehog series of games. Flicky is one of small animals captured to Doctor Eggman in order to power 'Badniks' (as they were originally known in the West), the robotic enemies in the games. Flickies seem to be large abundance in Sonic's home planet, as they appear to live on South Island, Little Planet, Westside Island and Angel Island.

Her first cameo was in the very first Sonic game, Sonic the Hedgehog. Here she was one of Sonic's friends on South Island whom Sonic went to rescue. She was named Flicky in both the Japanese and Western backstories (as revealed in the Japanese game manual and Western documents such as the Sonic Bible), the only one of the animal friends to have the same name in both versions.

Flicky's appearances in Sonic, Sonic 2, Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles were more low-key, her design was simply used as one of the freed animals, though she is one of the animals seen frolicking the Mushroom Hill Zone during the beginning of Knuckles the Echidna's story in Sonic & Knuckles.

Flicky also makes an appearance in Sonic the Hedgehog CD, even though flowers fall from the Badniks there instead of animals. If you destroy the Metal Sonic holograms in each Zone, animals will frolic in the present time, with one of them being Flicky.

In Sonic 3 & Knuckles, when playing as Super Tails, four Flickies that appear to be "Super Flickies" surround him and destroys enemies for him. When Super Tails reverts back to normal, the Flickies turn blue and fly away. Also while playing as Super Sonic in Sonic 2, any Flickies you see, including the ones in the final cutscene are super. But while playing as Tails there are chickens instead.

Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island
In this game, the sixth Sonic the Hedgehog installment for the Mega Drive, Flickies are mysterious birds who live on Flickies' Island and can travel through very large rings; these rings are similar to the rings used to enter the Special Stages in many older Sonic games, and the 'Goal Rings' in more modern Sonic installments. Eggman learns of these creatures and decides to transform them into badniks and have them search for the Chaos Emeralds for him.

Sonic 3D is Flicky's most well known appearance. However it is not Flicky who appears, but Flickies, a species. The 'classic' Flicky look is only one of four different kinds of Flickies; there are three others introduced: pink, red and green Flickies.

Sonic 3D and Flicky share similar traits, though collecting rings and Chaos Emeralds are still a part of the game, Sonic's main purpose is to collect Flickies (a bit of a turn around). Five Flickies are to be collected at a time and deposited in a giant ring. Flickies follow Sonic in a line like ducklings; if Sonic is hit the Flickies disperse (only blue and pink Flickies will make an attempt to find their way back to Sonic, the red ones bounce randomly and the green wander aimlessly) and must be re-collected. If they are clipped by an enemy the hit Flicky will break the chain and must be recollected, along with any Flicky behind it. Plus, if you deposit Flickies in the large ring in multiple numbers, your score per Flicky will increase. All of these traits are from the original Flicky game.

This game was ported to PC and to the Sega Saturn. The PC and Saturn versions featured dozens of graphical enhancements, including full animated backgrounds, that suggested that Flickies' Island was inhabited by other species, including construction worker moles. This port also featured a new soundtrack, and a new polygonal special stage that was, at the time, quite impressive.

Flicky and the Sega Saturn
As well as appearing in several images as one of Sonic's friends in Sonic the Screen Saver, a PC program, Flicky made cameos in all of Sonic's appearances on the Sega Saturn console. Though Sonic 3D was not included on Sonic Jam, the Sonic compilation released for the system, Flickies fly around the Game's bonus material, the fully 3D Sonic World. Flicky is named in the Characters section for the first time since Sonic 1.

Sonic R also features a Flicky cameo (not surprising as it was made by Traveler's Tales, the same British company who made Sonic 3D Blast). Whole flocks of them, in all four of their Sonic 3D Blast colors, can be seen around the start/finish of the Resort Island level.

Sonic Adventure
The primary Flicky in Sonic Adventure appears at the beginning of Amy Rose's quest. It falls from the sky, apparently hurt. Immediately following this event, a robot known as E-100, or ZERO, began pursuing Amy and the Flicky bird nonstop. As Amy's game progressed, the Flicky showed her the picture in the large locket it was carrying around. The picture depicted two other Flickies. Amy assumed that the birds in the picture were family members, and that Doctor Eggman had captured them. These Flickies turned out to be inside the robots E-101 Beta and E-102 Gamma, with Gamma being another playable character in the game. In the end, the robots are destroyed, and the Flicky is reunited with the two other ones.

There seems to be dispute over these three birds and their gender. In the game, Amy referred to the bird as "Birdie," and is referred as a male. However, in the Sonic X anime adaption of Sonic Adventure, Amy and Cream the Rabbit name the bird "Lily" and refer to it as female. Gamma and Beta are always addressed as males (and have masculine voices), but many people think that the two birds were parents of the blue Flicky, and that Gamma's pink hue implied that he was in fact a female, but this would be the bird's gender not Gamma's gender. Sonic X ' s Amy said that they were the blue bird's brother and sister. It could also be that the two other birds are both male or female, maybe two siblings or simply friends.

Flickies have not appeared in any 3D Sonic games since Sonic Adventure, but has appeared in some Sonic Advance games and Sonic Rush'.

Olympic Games'
In Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games, and Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games she appears in the audience of pretty much every event. These Flickies are based off of the their design from Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) rather than the updated designs in Sonic 3D Blast or Sonic Adventure.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4
The original Flickies returned as cameos in Sonic the Hedgehog 4, once again being rescued from Badniks by Sonic, along with the other old animal friends from the Genesis titles.

Sonic Generations
Flickies make appearance in Sonic Generations, playing basic role this time in missions, where you must find capsules around the mission level and free animal friends from prison. Animal friends including Flicky have also collectable trophy.

Sonic the Comic
In the British comic book Sonic the Comic, the Flicky design made cameos often in earlier issues as random Mobians and victims, though as the series developed more anthropomorphic bird characters were used instead.

The Flicky species appeared in Sonic the Comic #104 to #106, in an adaptation of Sonic 3D called "Flickies' Island". They are depicted as much smaller than regular Mobians, and unable to speak regular language, instead communicating by a sort of tweeting that only Tails can understand (although he later says it's not exactly a language, and he only gets a feeling of what the Flickies mean, leading Sonic to mockingly refer to it as "a sort of telepathy" ).

In this story, Doctor Robotnik (having been overthrown as ruler of Mobius) makes his new base on Flickies' Island, intending to discover why the native Flicky birds are only ever seen for a few weeks every year. He eventually discovers that the Flickies come from another dimension, and travel to Mobius by means of a floating Mobius Ring. Robotnik catches several of these Flickies to use as organic batteries in his new badniks. However, his plan was thwarted by the intervention of the Drakon Empire, who had built the ruins on Flickies' Island long ago and left the Mobius Rings as a way of knowing when the Mobians had developed to the point where they could be a potential threat to them. Robotnik was captured by a Drakon Prosecutor and taken through the Mobius Ring to the Drakon homeworld, and the Mobius Ring was deactivated.

Flickies' were later seen in their native habitat on the Drakon homeworld. After making a deal with the Drakon's Emperor Ko-Dorr, Robotnik ran his operations from Flickies' Island and continued to use Flickies to power his new model of Badniks. Robotnik's Flickies' Island base was destroyed in issue 132.

Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)
The Archie-published Sonic the Hedgehog comic book also chose to adapt Sonic 3D Blast, but in its own separate one-shot called Sonic Blast (they had previously produced adaptations of Sonic & Knuckles and Knuckles' Chaotix in the same way).

In their story, a little closer from the original, Sonic responded to a distress call from an island called Flickies' Island. Robotnik had enslaved the island, roboticized the Flickies and was looking for Chaos Emeralds. Sonic soon found out that the Robot Flickies were weak to seawater, when hit by saltwater they reverted to their flesh and blood forms. Sonic raced through the Zones and defeated Robotnik, who fled.

The Flickies in this adaptation were only the game's four kinds but were not encased in robots instead roboticized: a method devised, in that universe, by Sonic's Uncle Chuck to patch up wounded Mobians during their Great War, but taken and twisted by Robotnik and used to transform the organic creatures of the planet into robotic slaves. Flickies are the only 'Robians' that have ever had a weakness to Sea Water, or water of any kind, mostly they required 'Deroboticizing' via the same machine that roboticized them, unsurprisingly called 'the Roboticizer', to change them back.

Sonic X
The blue, pink and green Flickies from Sonic 3D Blast made a cameo in the Sonic X anime, when creatures from Sonic's world were taken to Earth. They can be spotted on the news in the episode # 2.13 Episode 39: "Defective Detectives". The blue and green Flicky also make a small appearance in the episode # 2.24 Episode 50: "Running Out of Time". The show confirms that their name is Flicky.

The Flickies from Sonic Adventure also appeared in the show during the game's adaptation. They all played the same roles as they did in the game, but were addressed as differently. Amy's Flicky friend who she calls "Birdie" in the game was named "Lily" in the show.

Sonic X (comic series)
On the cover of Issue 11 six blue flickies fly around Sonic in celebration of a victory. These flickies look a lot like Lily and the other flickies from Sonic Adventure because they all have the three spiked hairs in front.

Others
Flicky also appeared in a Sonic the Hedgehog series of novels made in 1992/3.

Cameo appearances

 * When Treasure released Gunstar Super Heroes on the Game Boy Advance in 2005, they paid tribute to Flicky in Pink's stage, where you run through a rotating jungle section rescuing little yellow chicks and guiding them to the exit door of the stage.
 * Flicky also appears in the Dreamcast game Shenmue as a gashapon toy the character can collect.
 * Flicky appears in Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games in the background of most events.

Screenshots
 File:004animals.jpg|Sonic X # 2.13 Episode 39: Defective Detectives File:Animals in sonic x.jpg|Sonic X # 2.24 Episode 50: Running Out of Time File:Flicky-at-vancouver.png|Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games 

Additional notes

 * At one point, DiC were considering using a character based Flicky, though it was red and male, in one of their cartoon series. This concept was scrapped (some say it was evolved into Sonic's "SatAM") so the character was never taken beyond his one promotional image, though he does bear a striking resemblance to the red Flicky in Sonic 3D Blast.
 * An interesting note is that if one plays as Knuckles in Sonic 3 and Knuckles, or plays Knuckles in Sonic 2, the Flickies turn red due to Knuckles' red palette (it is possible that they were just swapped for cardinals, however).
 * The red Flicky is the only one to not ever appear in Sonic X.
 * The red Flicky also looks similar to Woody Woodpecker.

Trivia

 * In Sonic Advance 2, a Badnik named Flickey looks a lot like a Flicky.
 * A Hero/Fly Chao can look similar to a Flicky.
 * In Sonic X, the blue, pink and green Flickies are seen on a TV screen in the episode "Defective Detectives" in the same art-poses as in their Sonic 3D Blast promotional artwork.
 * Flicky is older than Sonic himself.