Recently I had my own "giving Sonic 06 the benefit of the doubt" moment that ended in a bizarre realization.

In Sonic 06, one of the very first things you do in Sonic's story is a quest for an old man named Alberto Robert where he wants to give Sonic a special pair of shoes. It's been a few years, but I think these shoes give Sonic the lightspeed dash, which enables him to access the game's first level, Wave Ocean. You complete a simple challenge, basically a gameplay tutorial on how to move and jump with Sonic, and he gives you the shoes.

The quest/mission/challenge/whatever is called "The winder of a Shoemaker." And, for the last 17 years, I've taken that completely at face value. What's a Winder? No idea, but it's used with such confidence that I just assumed it's obscure regional slang and it just washed over me.
Until basically a couple nights ago when somebody pointed it out that it was probably a typo. In Japanese, the mission is apparently 奇跡の靴職人 -- which Google Translate tells me means "Miracle Shoemaker", but more specifically it's been said the quest was probably meant to be titled "The Wonder of a Shoemaker."
Literally the first thing you do in the whole entire game has a typo in it that they never corrected. Sonic 06 even had a patch or two! It even had a PS3 version come out nearly three months after the Xbox version! And nobody ever said "Hey wait a minute"
Now, to be fair, winders are a real thing. Several things, actually. Mechanical clocks have winders for their gears, there are winders in metalworking, and there are winders in sewing. Depending on your accent, winders are even the thing you open to let fresh air in.
But in this context? It means nothing. Absolutely nothing. It's just a typo.
Shoutouts to vgperson for digging up and translating the original Japanese quest title, plus Dr. Melon and Madelyn Himegami for the reminder of vgperson's translation in the videochess world discord. I'm still recovering from this realization.


