Theres still leftovers in the code from when SA1 was meant to look like that, and in fact the dreamcast model of Sonic on the Tornado uses a modified classic sonic
@@MilesAway the sonic design was altered closely before release, on some beta teases by SEGA, you can see classic tails and classic sonic honestly wish they stayed that way it looked way cleaner.
It could of, the Saturn was basically cancelled in 1997 "Saturn isn't our future" so all the work they done so far was moved to the Dreamcast, Sonic Team were one of the few developers to seem to know how to make the most of the Saturn, problem was aside from Sonic Jam and the awesome special stages in Sonic 3D Blast they didn't spend much time making Sonic content for the system, instead it was making new ips like Nights and Burning Rangers.