Sonic The Hedgehog: An 18-Year Retrospective

A beloved mascot recently celebrated his 18th birthday. In honor of this achievement, I wrote this summary of him and his history; the story of Sonic The Hedgehog.

If you say the words “Sonic The Hedgehog” to gamers nowadays, you’ll most likely get blank stares or sarcastic laughs. Indeed, as of recently, the games in Sonic’s repertoire have been… “lacking”, for lack of a better term. But how exactly did such a beloved and celebrated icon fall so far? In this retrospective, we’ll explore Sonic’s explosive debut, his prime, and his long fall into obscurity.

Flash back almost 20 years. The Nintendo Entertainment System has pulled video games out of their dark ages, and made a lot of money in the process. SEGA wanted a little piece of that, so on August 14th, 1989, the SEGA Genesis was released in North America. However, its lineup of games was weak; and while its hardware was superior to the NES, it didn’t sell as well.

Skip ahead 22 months. Specifically, June 23rd, 1991. This day saw the birth of a new mascot for SEGA and a new icon in the gaming world; Sonic The Hedgehog.

 

The first in out beloved friend’s series, Sonic The Hedgehog combined basic side-scrolling elements with blazing speed. While simple and easy to learn, Sonic The Hedgehog charmed gamers across the globe with its zany, fast-paced action.

Sonic The Hedgehog sold a large number of copies, and SEGA was quick to capitalize on its success. On November 24, 1992, the next chapter in Sonic’s gaming career would be released in North America.

 

Sonic The Hedgehog 2 stunned the gaming world by selling a simply staggering number of copies quite quickly. The game was still simple, yet fun. In fact, not much had changed from the original Sonic The Hedgehog. However, a new idea that surfaced in this game would have a profound effect on the rest of the series.

One idea was the introduction of Sonic’s new sidekick, Miles “Tails” Prower. The idea was simple; plug in a second controller, and a friend could play as Tails. Players could go through the single-player mode together, race each other in multiplayer maps, or compete to collect the most rings in special stages. Since Sonic 2, Tails has made an appearance in almost every Sonic game. With this, Sonic 2 was also one of the first games to feature both cooperative and competitive multiplayer.

Sonic 2 immediately shattered sales charts, becoming the top-selling Genesis game, but SEGA wasn’t satisfied yet. They began working on a Sonic game that would blow any other game out of the water; however, due to cartridge constraints, that game had to be split into two. Only the first would bear the name Sonic The Hedgehog 3.

 

The first of the two games hit North American shelves on February 2nd, 1994. Though it didn’t sell as well as its predecessors (possibly because it was the only one so far that did not come bundled with the system), Sonic The Hedgehog 3 is widely considered, to this day, Sonic’s best game. As Sonic 2 was similar to Sonic 1, Sonic 3 was very similar to Sonic 2. But a few new features made it shine.

First up is the implementation of a save system. Many games around this time featured a save slot, but Sonic 3 boasted six slots. This allowed players to progress through the game at their own pace, as opposed to the other Sonic games, which had to be completed in a single sitting.

As Sonic 2 introduced Tails, Sonic 3 saw the debut of a famous character as well; namely, Knuckles The Echidna. Originally an antagonist, Knuckles appeared in almost all future Sonic games as one of Sonic’s friends.

Sonic 3 on  its own was an incredible game, but its true potential would not be realized until 8 months later.

 

On October 17th, Sonic & Knuckles was released. The other half to Sonic 3, Sonic & Knuckles held a feature called the “lock-on” feature. This allowed Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 to be placed on top of, or “locked onto” the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge, rewriting some of the top game’s code. In Sonic 2, this allowed the player to play as Knuckles, but in Sonic 3, the differences were much bigger.

Locking Sonic 3 onto the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge not only allowed players to play as Knuckles in the Sonic 3 levels, but it also added another eight save slots, and more levels for Sonic 3. The lock-on feature spurred an increase in sales of Sonic 3, which, combined with the sales of Sonic & Knuckles, made a great deal of money for SEGA.

The period slightly after Sonic & Knuckles’ release is considered to be the prime of Sonic’s life. Sonic was appearing everywhere from games, to merchandise, to TV, and even ice cream bars. But, all good things must come to an end.

SEGA soon released their new system, the SEGA Saturn, and they were quick to release a few Sonic games for it. However, these games paled in comparison to their Genesis counterparts. Sonic’s popularity declined, and he was thought to be beyond rescue.

Fast-forward to September 9, 1999. SEGA’s newest system, the SEGA Dreamcast, hits North American shelves, sporting a new Sonic game as a launch title.

 

With flashy 3D graphics, Sonic Adventure attempted to breathe life into the presumed-dead series. Did it succeed? In a way.

Sonic Adventure featured six playable characters. While this was one of the game’s selling points, three of the characters’ levels and gameplay were considered… well, terrible. This left the latter half of the game rather unenjoyable, and left a bitter aftertaste in an otherwise great game.

Despite that, the game sold well and received very good scores. As usual, SEGA was quick to make a sequel.

 

June 23, 2001. Sonic’s 10th birthday. And a great day for Dreamcast owners. Sonic Adventure 2 was released, featuring a less touchy camera, multiplayer, and, once again, six characters.

Sonic Adventure 2 introduced one of the series’ most recognizable characters, Shadow The Hedgehog. Due to his and Sonic’s levels in the game being fun, he got a good rep. The other four characters, however, had (once again) bad gameplay.

Aside from the game, its soundtrack was highly praised. It is arguably one of the greatest game soundtracks ever.

Sonic Adventure 2 still scored and sold very highly, and it was thought that SEGA had reincarnated the old bird. Even after SEGA stopped releasing consoles, they continued to make Sonic games for other consoles; the first of them being Sonic Heroes.

 

 

 

Released for the Gamecube, Xbox, and PS2 on January 27th (January 5th for Gamecube) 2003, Sonic Heroes attempted to blend running-based gameplay, flying-based gameplay, and fighting-based gameplay into one… and failed. Sonic Heroes featured 12, count ‘em, 12 characters. And only three that people cared about. Once again, Sonic’s career was on the ropes. So, SEGA tried to rally old-school Sonic fans by releasing the (not so) coincidentally named game, Sonic The Hedgehog.

 

Our next stop is at the Xbox 360 on November 14th, 2006. Arguably not fit to bear the Sonic The Hedgehog name, Sonic the Hedgehog was a disappointing attempt to bring Sonic back from the brink of death (again). The game had a nice premise, but was bound by terrible execution.

With Sonic pretty much dead to even his most hardcore fans, SEGA decided it would be best to stay with what made Sonic games fun in the first place; speed.

 

This Wii-exclusive title hit shelves on February 20th, 2007. And it stunned the gaming world. While not great, this game showed that Sonic still as a little life left in him. A nice, Arabian Knights story with fast-paced action gave this game generally good reviews, and hyped up the next game, Sonic Unleashed, which promised to give more fast-paced action.

 

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. This disappointment came to North America on November 18, 2008. Sonic Unleashed plays in two ways; speed-based, and combat-based. The speed levels feel like old Sonic… but ironically, too fast, ruining many of the game’s moments. And the combat levels are nothing more than a bad rip off of God of War. Once again, Sonic fans were disappointed.

Sonic’s next game was promised to be part of a mini-series with Sonic and the Secret Rings, and once again, hopes skyrocketed.

 

This game reached North American shelves on March 3rd, 2009. It was received much like Sonic and the Secret Rings; not great, but good. This was a welcome change from the last game. A nice mix of combat and speed once again breathed a little life back into our blue friend.

Recently, Sonic has met a series of crushing defeats, kept only alive by a decent game every now and then. Nothing shows my feeling quite like this next picture (start at the top of the circle):

 

 

So, how long do you think Sonic can last? What he’s doing right now won’t cut it; we’ll all just have to hope that SEGA can make a good Sonic game, or he’ll be forever lost.