Flicky (character)

Flicky is the bird hero of Flicky. Flicky later went on to become a reoccurring character within the Sonic the Hedgehog series.

Appearance
Flicky typically looks like a small blue bird with a large head, a tuft of feather like hair, big eyes, pink cheeks and a darker blue mask like marking under his eyes.

In earlier depictions her beak, tail feathers and wings were considerably larger and his feet were much smaller.

More modern depictions of Flicky give him tiny wings and beak, a body half the size of his head, long feet that are bigger than her body, a smaller tuft of hair, and an almost non existant tail.

For some reason the US art for the original Flicky had him have a much longer beak and either duck like feet or yellow eyes and more realistic bird wings.

History
In Flicky, Flicky's goal was to rescue the chicks scattered around a looping level and bring them to the exit whilst avoiding cat creatures known as Tiger (or Nyannan) and lizard like creatures known as Iggy (or Choro) both of whom wish to eat the babies.

Retrieving multiple Chirps (or Piopio) at once will net Flicky a bonus. To fend off the predators, he would send hammers, plant pots, telephones, cups and bottles flying into them to knock them out, allowing him to rescue the six children.

Flicky appears in SDI. If players play a perfect game, he and the Chirps will replace the SDI Satellite.

Flicky also appears in the puzzle game Bloxeed, in which he aided players by dropping blocks one row at a time.

Flicky was later added in as one of the animal buddies into the Sonic the Hedgehog series, being redesigned to look cuter and more helpless as Sonic would free them and other animals from Dr. Eggman's badnik creations.

Of all the animal buddies, Flicky plays the most significant roles throughout the series:


 * They star in Sonic 3D Blast (otherwise known as Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island in Japan) and introducing both Flicky Island and variant species of Flicky that are said to be the keys to the Chaos Emeralds. In this game Sonic must touch a Flicky in order to make it follow him and take it to an exit goal. In many ways this is a similar gameplay loop to Flicky.
 * Flickies are involved in Tails' super form, Super Tails. When Tails collects all seven Super Emeralds, he will begin to glow yellow and four Flickies will follow him, gaining their own super form. They do the majority of attacking for Super Tails, striking down all enemies in his path, but their power is directly related to Tails' ability to harness chaos energy, meaning when he runs out rings, the Flickies lose their power too.
 * In Sonic Adventure, a Flicky known as  'Birdie' stars in Amy Rose's campaign. Birdie has escaped Dr. Eggman's clutches, and has a locket on him which contains a picture of his siblings as well as a Chaos Emerald. Dr. Eggman sends ZERO to capture the bird, whilst Amy Rose attempts to keep him safe. Birdie's siblings are revealed to have been used as living batteries for E-101 Beta and E-102 Gamma. At the end of the game they are all rescued with E-102 Gamma choosing to die in order to free the Flicky within it.

Apart from these notable roles, Flicky are mostly used as animal buddies Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and the others must rescue from Badniks and Capsules at the end of the level.

Trivia

 * Flicky is a sparrow and the Chirps aren't his children, being baby chickens. Despite this, Flicky feels a strong enough connection to the baby chicks that he feels he must rescue them in their parents place from the predators that roam the apartment.
 * Flicky appears in a cameo in Flash Point, where he walks across the screen telling the player  'Good Luck!' at the start of a level. Other characters include Alex Kidd, Opa-Opa and Princess Kurumi from Sega Ninja.
 * Flicky is the only animal buddy to recieve a super form.
 * Flicky appears as one of the many Sega based Tamagotchis in Sega Saturn de Hakken!! Tamagotchi Park. To obtain Flickytchi players must raise a Cartritchi with sub-par care or raise a Disctchi with good care.
 * Flickies will take on the colors of the character that rescued them in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. For example they will appear red when rescued by Knuckles, Gold when rescued by Super Sonic, flash pink and red if rescued by Hyper Knuckles or change multicoloured when rescued by Hyper Sonic. The only exception is if they are rescued by Tails in his base form in which they'll keep their regular blue colour.
 * A poster for the original Flicky can be seen in You Arcade in Shenmue.
 * Flicky's original game is included in Game no Kanzume Vol 1 and Game no Kanzume Otokuyou.
 * Flicky is one of the few non-humanoid(and non female) characters to appear as a scorecard character in Sega Ages and Sega Ages: Columns 2's Jewel Case.