In the dawn of the 1990s, the video game industry was firmly in the grasp of a certain, mustachioed Italian plumber from Nintendo. Even before I became the kid totally obsessed with everything Mario, I was a huge fan of the character for reasons that probably appeal to most children: He’s a good guy, powerful yet sympathetic, and a funny figure around whom all kinds of nutty things happen. In 1991, though, Mario was supplanted in my heart by a new figure named Sonic the Hedgehog, who was introduced in a game for the Sega Genesis game console.
The first time I saw Sonic the Hedgehog, he was nothing more than a cobalt-blue streak speeding across my television. I was in a video game shop at an outdoor mall, and the store had a Sega Genesis setup — my first experience with a 16-bit system in the wild. The game was set to play the iconic Act One of the original game for you to watch if you didn’t pick up the controller and start yourself. The vibrant palette of what is arguably the series’ best-looking act, and the equally vibrant and catchy music that still holds up today, was burned into my impressionable pre-teen brain.
The design of Sonic was the perfect foil to Mario. Where Mario was rotund and amiable, Sonic was sharp and cool. The bright blue of the character was taken from the Sega logo, a picaresque and fun play of a corporate symbol; the red sneakers Sonic sported were an homage to Michael Jackson, who was at the pinnacle of his popularity when Sonic was created. All these were components of a visual design that attracted the player. But the character of Sonic was also about expressing a different kind of speed and a fresh, frictionless visual world. Sonic was a different sort of cool.
The groundbreaking mechanics of Sonic the Hedgehog completely redefined gameplay in the platformer genre. Side-scrolling games, like the original Super Mario Bros., had focused on having their protagonists methodically navigate their way through the level and save the day, and they were all about “timing.” Sonic’s side-scrolling platformer was a whole different animal altogether because, in it, the player was focused with a laser intensity on doing one thing at all times: Moving forward, and fast! And in lots of situations, the player was also doing incredible acrobatics, clearing bottomless pits or rolling through loop-de-loops, or else doing both at the same time.
My favorite memory is the first time I made it through the Green Hill Zone without dying. At the end of that first romp through the tall swinging grass with the checkered soil, the entire ground a series of rolling hills and awkwardly positioned totems of rock, and the never-ending sea of bright blue sky filled with improbable balloons that somehow held together this insane world landscape, long enough to accomplish the first goal: Straight through, and yes, I felt accomplished. All the more because it was a game that still to this day thrives on speed and replayability. Sonic the Hedgehog is a marker of my early beginnings of Life and a much-needed friend to my barely-there social life back in squat-all Alabama.
The first Sonic game was only the start. Sonic’s bust-out-in-1991 was followed up pretty quickly, within a year with Sonic the Hedgehog 2. The second game in the series is the one that introduced good ol’ reliable Tails. Tails and Sonic made a great team, and they still do. That duo got things done because, well, Sonic Runs Like the Wind and Tails knows flyin’. In fact, Tails flew the Tornado (the name of his biplane) and was our fly guy before there were drones. And, to increase the Tails worthiness, over Sonic 2, Tails wasn’t killed off after his player-powered run of invincibility. That same quality player 2 character has recently allowed fans to recreate the Sonic 2 experience in virtual reality.
Sonic 2 was the first game to feature the concept of a spin dash. The move allowed the character to rev up and launch himself at high speeds from a standstill; it also added a new strategic layer to the gameplay. Although Sonic 1 was lauded for its solid controls, fun factor, and an overall sense of speed, many agreed that its level design could use some work in terms of enemy placement and layout for the sake of entertaining platforming. Sonic 2 largely fixed those problems, and the subsequent mix of speedy dashing and platforming delighted many a Sega fan.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and the follow-up game, Sonic & Knuckles, brought the franchise to a whole new level. Part of that was the expansion of the story; the worlds of Sonic the Hedgehog were suddenly much broader, and the jewel at the center was Knuckles the Echidna. In Sonic 3 and the first act of Sonic & Knuckles, you could play as both Sonic and his buddy Tails on the single-path levels, or go it alone. It was as if Sonic & Knuckles were two separate games, and the lock-on technology let you combine them into one behemoth gaming experience.
The narratives of these games have also evolved. They’ve become more complex, as has the relationship between the series’ core duo, Sonic and Tails, and their off-and-on adversaries, Knuckles and the doctors. The environments have become more detailed, and fans are more aware of how much time the developers spend on ensuring that a character’s “look” matches the feel and appeal of his or her zone’s theme. Whether it’s a theme park, a rooftop, an underground lair, a pyramid, a casino, or your classic “greens and water with long bridges and pullout platforms over spikes of sudden death” vertical and horizontal UI, the Sonic games all offer us a diverse, vibrant world.
The thrill of finding the Super Emeralds and becoming Hyper Sonic remains fresh in my mind. Those games always had a delightful amount of hidden content that kept them feeling new and surprising. For me, an “a-ha!” moment in a Sonic game was just as exciting as any plot twist in a good detective novel. When my friends and I were kids, we’d tell each other about those moments, as if we were trading “did you know?” anecdotes. We always seemed to have a different secret to tell.
Gaming technology changed, and so did Sonic. It was a huge shift for everything and everyone in the business to move from the 2D to the 3D world, and that certainly included Sonic. But Sonic Adventure, which was released in 1998 for the Sega Dreamcast, was his first time in a fully realized, 3D space.
I was a kid, with Sonic Adventures as my first Sonic game. I wasn’t previously a Sonic fan (mostly because I didn’t own a Sega Genesis and couldn’t play the games that were actually good). I saw this Sonic Adventure game as mind-blowing for its time: an expansive world filled with beautifully rendered angles and stunning graphics.
The first Sonic Adventure gave players a chance to not only control Sonic but also five other characters from his universe, each with their own abilities that fit a certain play style. There was of course, Sonic himself, who you can basically control like you do in the original games. But then there were Tails, Amy, and Knuckles, who all represented older Sonic characters with their own storylines and gameplay abilities. Then there was Big the Cat (you fish with him) and E-102 Gamma (you shoot robots with him), who could basically do anything that Sonic, Tails, or Knuckles couldn’t.
Emerald Coast is an unforgettable first level. I can still close my eyes and see it as if I were playing it right this instant. It forced me to become competent with the game’s basic controls and timing, and it is so much fun to go back to even now. The set piece with the whale is a fantastic little thrill, and when the level design isn’t having you slow down, everything about Emerald Coast feels lightning-fast. And at the same time, even when controlling that speed, the HD version makes the remixed level feel comfortably under control.
In 2001, Sonic Adventure 2 hit store shelves and built upon the foundation of the first Sonic Adventure. It was certainly a faster-paced experience, in line with the Sega Genesis games, and it pared down its playable character lineup to just Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles on the good side and just Shadow, Dr. Robotnik, and Rouge on the not-so-good side. Into this mix came the character of Shadow the Hedgehog, who readily became a key player in the Sonic franchise. As the narrative unfolded, what was a much darker story became apparent, as did a nearly new cast of figures that filled out a depth of presence the writers had intended all along.
The game has two unique storylines, following both the heroes and the villains, which come to an explosive climax in the final scene that makes clear just what’s at stake. (Most of us were sufficiently awed by the reveal of the world-shattering Eclipse Cannon.) And when you’ve had your fill of blasting through the military compounds, haunted temples, and zero-gravity segments of the Space Colony ARK, the Chao Garden, a Tamagotchi-style minigame that is also said to serve as the series’ official “Good Ending”, was a nice way to wind down. Sonic Adventure 2 was fast, fun, and a Dreamcast lover’s dream.
Sonic’s passage through the gaming world became bumpier as time went on. The first few years of the new millennium saw his home, Sega, stumbling between commercial and critical success and failure. After many miscalculations with game design and even console hardware, the company seemed in great danger of going the way of the dodo. When Sonic games like Sonic Heroes (2005) and Shadow the Hedgehog (2004) didn’t manage more than mediocre impressions, leading some fans with a shrug and others firmly gripping the id Software slogan from Doom—”Rip and tear, until it is done.”
When Sonic the Hedgehog turned 15 years old in 2006, it was marked by the release of a new game: Sonic the Hedgehog. The new title soon became known as Sonic ’06 because…well, it’s kind of a mouthful otherwise. The anniversary game was, in some ways, the most ’90s version of Sonic yet. This wasn’t a good thing. The game was a step back from previous 3D titles in the series, ones noted for technical issues of their own. But Sonic ’06 suffered from poor mechanics and worse level design. Its hopelessly convoluted plot left many fans, like me, just plain fed up.
The Sonic the Hedgehog series made a significant comeback with the release of Sonic Colors for the Nintendo Wii in 2010. This game had everything that longtime fans of the series had been clamoring for; and as a result, it showed just what the series could do when it stuck to its principles.
The colors! The incredible, vibrant colors that this game displayed were in a class by themselves. It turns out that, in a game where you have to do things quickly, having a bunch of bright stuff on the screen is really helpful.
The game Sonic Generations, which came out in 2011, was released in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Sonic. It clustered together the classic and the newfound modernity of Sonic. The game lets the player traverse not only through an assortment of reimagined levels from Sonic’s past games but iconic stages as well, and in three-dimensional space, the appearance of Green Hill Zone or City Escape is a sight for sore eyes. Nostalgia operates at peak capacity when one plays this game, and the “why” for its appearance is very easily understood.
The Sonic franchise got a big boost from Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations, but in 2017, Sonic Mania really brought the old magic back. Leading the development were the lifelong Sonic fans, indie developers, and frankly, maniacs, who created a half-sequel, half-remix love letter to Sonic’s 2D side. Sonic Mania took everything great (and a few not-so-great things) about the old games and funneled it into a high-quality experience that felt both fresh and familiar to veteran Sonic players.
When I played Sonic Mania, it transported me back to the days when I was a just a kid. Everything about the game, from its pixelated style to its ’90s-electro soundtrack, screamed “retro.” There were all kinds of hidden pathways, cleverly-disguised traps, and dastardly secrets in each level. But the one thing that kept me coming back was Sonic’s lovably cocky attitude, he was just fun to play as.
