Happy 30th Birthday Sonic The Hedgehog!

[Ketchup]

Time to feel old.

Released on June 23rd 1991 in the USA, Europe and Japan wouldn’t see this till July of that year.

 

I first got sonic for Christmas 91 I believe. I’m sure I’d seen it in shops or on tv and it looked like nothing else at the time. I’d not really played games beyond what friends had on the master system although I did have a hand me down Spectrum 128k at the time that I enjoyed.

Considering especially for Europe that super Mario bros 3 came out after sonic 1 in August 1991 looking like this

and whilst a fantastic game it could not compete at all with Sonic looking like this and the speed and effects it moved at.

I actually miss the days of the sonic vs Mario wars, they were fun and sorta friendly compared to what we have now.

 

To indulge in Sonic 1 for just a moment that opening level is what everyone recognises and whilst a lot of people now retroactively hate many of the levels that follow, sonic has some fun platforming. He wasn’t all about speed, that first level showed speed and cool effects like breaking through walls as well as exploration but the slower paced levels really help that speed to shine and be your reward. The water levels can do one though.

 

In sonics first ten years we had everything from sonic 1 up to sonic adventure 2. So many fun, visually stunning and awesome games. Sonics next twenty years slowed down a little but we still got some classic sonic titles as well as sonic generations. The last ten years for sonic though have been pretty barren with a handful of ports, sonic forces and thankfully sonic mania.

 

But with his first live action feature film actually being really good things are looking up for sonic. I’d love to do a full post detailing the sonic time line but there isn’t time for that in this post. I did five years ago actually do a video covering most of sonics main history here though that’s still mostly relevant.

For me there’s a bigger attachment to Sonic than just playing the games as a kid, I even got the chance to work on two games in the franchise and be a part of his history. Something I’d never have even thought possible as a child. Sonic will always hold a special place in my heart and I’ll still always think he is better than Mario (even if his games are not).

 

Id love to hear some of your memories of growing up with sonic and feeling old together. He’s had a varied life from playing tennis, racing karts, being in a pinball machine and so much more. So here’s to sonics 30th birthday and long may the Sonic cycle continue!

[djbhammer]

Really nice post @Ketchup and can recommend the latest issue of Retro Gamer which I bought recently - it's a Sonic special and a great read.

 

The very first Sonic on the MegaDrive back in 1991 was my first experience of the blue hedgehog and absolutely loved it.  Green Hill zone was an awesome intro to the game too, just super fast.

[Chooch]

That Genesis box for Sonic one is awful.

[Rex Grossman]

Sonic is easily one of the 50 best game characters of all time, and the Mega Drive original is certainly in the top 100 16-bit games ever made.

[JohnC]

Given the other birthday thread, I can’t believe Sonic is only 5 years older than Quake. 

[Droo]

I still remember seeing it on display in Stewart’s (?) and my mind being blown by the special stage graphics. 

[Rayn]

I'm gonna be that guy and admit that I've actually never got the hype around the Sonic games. I had a Megadrive and played through 1 and 2, which was rather enjoyable at the time, but as games they never had the big appeal to me. A lot of the levels invited you to explore to find secret areas but due to the time limit and the sluggish speed when not running it kinda felt like bad way to play the game.

Play in fun speed, however, and the levels zoomed past before your eyes and if you were lucky you could reach the end of level within seconds without touching any spike traps og being stung by a bee or something, but playing like this made me feel like I was missing out on a lot of interesting stuff. 

 

I know I'm in the minority here and I wish I liked it more but overall it's all a bit meh to me. Best thing about the entire franchise is the music and the ring chime, they are iconic as f. 

[Qazimod]

Even though I'm one of the more blinkered Sonic fans (there was a time where I called Adventure 1 the best thing ever, and I was saying this about four or five years after the fact, long after the DC died) I admit that their appeal can be confusing. The first Mega Drive game was decent, but later on there was a lot of hold-right-to-win gameplay through stages that came close to playing themselves. That said, I still like 2, 3, K and even bits of the Advance games and Rush. And Mania of course.

 

I think that the first Mega Drive game is the ultimate blueprint though - it was a platformer with moments of high-speed, not a game that's on autopilot. The lite platforming required to safely make it through Marble Zone or Labyrinth Zone made the levels feel like levels that buried into your subconscious, rather than forgettable spectacle. Even the bonus stages in the first game were my favourite compared to the equivalents in the Mega Drive sequels.

 

I've probably played the first game on Mega Drive, then emulated on PC, then as part of the PSP compilation, and then on the 360 compilation.  Maybe I'll add it to the Steam Mega Drive collection sometime...

[Paulando]

I got a Mega Drive for my eighth birthday, in October ‘92, the Sonic bundle. I wasn’t into games at the time, and the first thing I asked when I opened it was: ‘what is it?’.

 

Let me tell you, it’s the game that started my love affair with video games which continues to this day. There aren’t many 16-bit platformers that still play well, but Sonic really is one of them. Work of genius.

 

This is me, playing it on Christmas Day the same year:

 

[carlospie]

We had a secondhand Japanese mega drive and I played sonic on it religiously. I went to a friend's house one day and he had sonic on the mega drive, but it was in colour!!

 

Turns out we had some issue with our TV all that time, I just presumed the mega drive played games in black and white. 

[Nick R]

 

 

 

 

 

[Dudley]

Sonic says thank you for the gifts...

 

[Down by Law]

I was a Sonic nut as a kid - though I didn't get to play the 16bit original until the mid 90s. My first experience was the Master System version played on a Game Gear with the converter, in '91 so I would have been 6. Tiny screen be damned - I loved that game to death ! Finishing it was one of my fave childhood gaming memories. 

 

I bought Sonic the Comic, had the classic bedsheet and curtains. I loved all the games until Sonic Heroes which was really poor. Thank god for Generations and Mania. The Colours remaster looks great, so I'll be picking that up. I just hope the 30th anniversary game really delivers . They've had bloody long enough to make it 

 

Either way, Sonic's a brilliant character. Timeless. It's testament to his appeal that no matter how many shit games he has, his popularity never wavers. 

[Wiper]

Sonic was the first console game I ever owned — specifically, the Game Gear version. Before my eighth Christmas (1992) my dad took me to a game shop (no idea which one; it would probably have been in Gloucester) and got the staff to let me try three different consoles: a Game Boy (playing a Mario game of some description), a Lynx (playing Batman Returns), and a Game Gear (playing, obviously, Sonic). He asked me which I preferred; I said the Game Gear, because there was no way the drab games on the other two systems could compete with the colourful wonder I'd just experienced on Sega's chunky handheld.

 

I thought nothing more of it, being a child of very little brain (to be fair to me, trips to game shops to play games while dad did boring, shopping-related things were hardly unusual) until Christmas day when l opened my presents and lo! A Game Gear had arrived.

 

That Game Gear and Sonic would be my faithful companions for the better part of the next decade, travelling with me on the hourlong train journeys to and from visiting my dad every weekend, and filling up my weekday evenings with gaming while I was away from my dad's Atari ST. It remains one of the only games of its era that I would actually complete; despite being zealously into video games from the age of four, Sonic 1 was one of very few games I actually put the time into mastering, and I was ecstatic when I finally completed the game after finding every Chaos Emerald along the way.

 

Other games came and went on that Game Gear, but Sonic was always my favourite. Happy 30th birthday, old friend!

[Down by Law]

25 minutes ago, Wiper said:

It remains one of the only games of its era that I would actually complete; despite being zealously into video games from the age of four, Sonic 1 was one of very few games I actually put the time into mastering, and I was ecstatic when I finally completed the game after finding every Chaos Emerald along the way.

 

 

"MOM, COME HERE ! SONIC'S SINGING!!!!"

 

 

 

Blimey what a game. What a soundtrack ! Yuzo killing it with 8 bits.

 

 

[Down by Law]

 

Ha wow this is a bit classy

[Keyboard Koala]

NEG would've loved this thread 😢

[Popo]

On 23/06/2021 at 18:14, Down by Law said:

had the classic bedsheet

Oh wow, I had completely forgotten that I had this too! I think. 
 

Like many, Sonic the Hedgehog was the game that sparked my interest in gaming. It was absolutely mesmeric. From the moment I saw that small blue critter zoom through Green Hill Zone at high speed, avoiding spikes and pits, grabbing rings and spinning through walls, I knew I was experiencing something truly wonderful. 
 

For some reason Sega haven’t put any of the classic Sonic soundtracks on Spotify. I also heard there’s a new compilation coming out, which they’ve managed not to release on the 30th anniversary. Absolute clowns!

[Jackson]

My favourite sonic memory was when I visited my cousin (was 'deadly dennis' on here fyi) at Manchester uni. We drank absinthe, got very high, met a random chap who Whitied (sp?) and passed out on my cousin's bed. We then put on a speed run of Sonic 2 really loudly and danced our hearts out for the whole twenty or so minutes. Was really exciting when they got bonuses that made the music change/speed up, or the little extra lives jingle. Much more fun than playing. 10/10.

 

We also used to have regular "world cups" as teenagers on the sonic 2 competitive two player mode. They were intense. I remember winning my first one controversially because my cousin slipped on the stairs and hit his head on a radiator, he was almost certainly concussed.

 

That two player mode is the best thing in any sonic game hands down. Brilliantly designed.

[Retroid]

This just doesn't feel right, summoning @NEG

[Popo]

He was perma-banned, wasn’t he?

[Sprite Machine]

On 23/06/2021 at 20:19, Down by Law said:

 

Ha wow this is a bit classy

That was pretty cool. 😎 I like how it turns into a rock show for the second half.

Although it does highlight how many shitty 3D Sonic games there have been over the years - good grief!

[Keyboard Koala]

On 27/06/2021 at 15:35, Popo said:

He was perma-banned, wasn’t he?

 

He was.

 

Damn you Robotnik!

[Smoothy]

On 23/06/2021 at 11:30, Ketchup said:

I first got sonic for Christmas 91 I believe. I’m sure I’d seen it in shops or on tv and it looked like nothing else at the time. I’d not really played games beyond what friends had on the master system although I did have a hand me down Spectrum 128k at the time that I enjoyed.

Considering especially for Europe that super Mario bros 3 came out after sonic 1 in August 1991 looking like this

and whilst a fantastic game it could not compete at all with Sonic looking like this and the speed and effects it moved at.

I actually miss the days of the sonic vs Mario wars, they were fun and sorta friendly compared to what we have now.

 

 

 

Wash your mouth out! 😆  Sonic The hedgehog never had the depth that Super Mario Bros 3 had - the latter was easily the best game ever at the time!

But look, even though I was a total Mario mark back in the days, I secretly longed for Sonic... which is why I bought up several of the Sonic compilations over the years.  Loved the games!  I do think Sonic 2 was the pinnacle though, I think Sonic 3 overegged it a bit, and it ended there for me (although Sonic 4 Episode I and II are decent stabs at updating the same type of formula for the 2010s, and Sonic Mania is great).

 

Oh and I love Sonic CD, even though it's a bit Sonic 1.5 it's amazing!

[Popo]

1 hour ago, Smoothy said:

Sonic 3 overegged it a bit

Quite possibly, however I’ve found myself replaying the Sonic 1 and 2 360 ports on my Series X the past week and am left wishing I could go back in time, Sonic CD style, and change the past by buying 3 and S&K, which I failed to do at the time, thereby avoiding the bad future I now exist in where they can no longer be purchased. 
 

I love Sonic 3 in particular, which for some reason I never owned on the Megadrive itself, and which I primarily know through the later Sonic Jam collection on the Saturn; and my legendary holiday camp victory, centred on an Angel Island zone 1 high score challenge, which I royally whupped everyone else at by going straight to the boss and amassing a score in the thousands, rather than the pittances obtained by everyone else who wasted their time stomping Botniks, the idiots. 
 

I love Sonic 3. 

[the_debaser]

Sonic doesn’t have a birthday does he, I thought he remained 15 years old forever? 

[Oh Danny Boy]

I like it, not £70 like it, but definitely looks cool. 
 

 

 

https://www.segashop.co.uk/products/official-sonic-the-hedgehog-30th-anniversary-statue?variant=39324586147882&currency=GBP&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=google+shopping&utm_source=RakutenAffiliateNetwork&utm_content=Retro+Faith&ranMID=44836&ranEAID=2KG%2F03nmUMo&ranSiteID=2KG_03nmUMo-N9Iugd1b6vjGCyQ3ZRdW4A

[Keyboard Koala]

That looks great!

 

 

Fun fact, which I bet most people won't even know; the big ball at the end of Robotnik's chain was originally going to be an apple, as can be seen in the preview version in this French ad for Sonic The Hedgehog :

 

 

 

I was a bit disappointed when I finally played the game and it turned out they had changed it to a pretty standard ball.

[Sprite Machine]

14 hours ago, Keyboard Koala said:

That looks great!

 

 

Fun fact, which I bet most people won't even know; the big ball at the end of Robotnik's chain was originally going to be an apple, as can be seen in the preview version in this French ad for Sonic The Hedgehog :

 

 

 

I was a bit disappointed when I finally played the game and it turned out they had changed it to a pretty standard ball.

 

Interesting! What's up with that extra long spring too?

[Keyboard Koala]

And then you're listening to the national radio on a lazy Saturday afternoon and this song comes on: