It feels slightly strange that I feel compelled to wish a fictional videogame character Happy Birthday, but I don’t really care. I’ve posted it on my facebook wall, no doubt to puzzled expressions or rolling eyes to the majority of my friends list, but dammit, Sonic the Hedgehog holds a special place in my heart and I’m going to throw a celebration for him, even if that celebration takes place in my head.
Sonic the Hedgehog for the SEGA Megadrive (Genesis, what the hell is that?) was pretty much the first game I recall ever playing and certainly the first videogame I ever owned. Somewhere I had played it before, perhaps over my cousins house in the weeks leading up to December.
I was immediately struck by the little blue blur. The character was bright and stood out against the lushness of the green environment that the game used as a background for its first level. The controls were simple, and pinging Sonic over spikes, blasting him around wild loop-the-loops and bouncing him like a helpless pinball across springs at a breakneck pace was sheer exhilaration to my infant eyes. Factor in the iconic music and chirpy sound effects and I was hooked on Sonic.
I distinctly remember getting my Megadrive for Christmas. As I finished opening my presents that morning I couldn’t help but feel a little dissapointed at the lack of that one thing I had most been looking forward to. Yeah, call me ungrateful if you will, but I was a kid, and to have seen no sign of that big, bulky box was all kinds of dissapointing. Having unwrapped all of the presents and having become resigned to the reality of no Sonic this Christmas, I flicked open the Christmas card envelopes that took a backseat to the ritualistic opening of the presents. At the non-so-subtle suggestion from my parents I paid extra attention to the one from Santa. Amongst all of the usual pre-printed Merry Christmas wishes was an extra message, handwritten at the bottom: “Look in the porch”.
Barely able to conceal my grin I waded through all of the discarded wrapping paper and threw open the door to the porch. This being winter, and me and my sister demanding our Christmas morning to start early, it still wasn’t light yet, but amongst the darkness I could still clearly make out the form of quite a large box.
Yeah…my other presents didn’t get much of a look in that day. Right there and then I was allowed to tear open the box and hook the system straight up to the living room TV to blast through the first few levels of Sonic the Hedgehog in glorious colour. Later on in the day I had to take it upstairs to my monochrome TV, but the magic was still there regardless. Over the next few weeks I worked on getting good enough at the game to complete it, which was no easy task given the absence of any save system. Game over really meant game over back then.
Later on, with a certainty that seems almost cynical to me today, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was released, featuring new zones, new features and a new character, Miles ‘Tails’ Prower. Usually Tails would limply follow Sonic around the levels as if tied to him with string. Plugging in a second controller though, allowed another player to control Tails and use his unique ability of limited flight to carry Sonic to useful parts of the level, often containing hidden lives or temporary invincibility. It also added the ability to become the lauded Super Sonic – a practically invincible, golden coloured version of the hero who could rip through levels at a much quicker pace.
Sonic was such a hit that it couldn’t be confined to videogames much longer, and being an avid child fan of the guy, I was only too happy to be taken along for the ride. The first stop was Sonic the Comic, a British comic strip set in an oddly compelling dystopian setting where Sonic and co fought against the nefarious Dr. Robotnik as plucky revolutionaries. I can’t remember precisely when I started picking the comics up and nor can I remember much about the many storylines the fortnightly comic told. What I do remember is stopping into my local Newsagents every other week on my way home from school to pick up the latest issue. To this day I remain a fan of the comics various styles of artwork, and I still have a huge stack of them tucked away in my bottom draw in my bedroom back home.
Apparently really liking the whole dystopian/Sonic mix, somebody thought it would be a good idea to make a TV show based on a similar premise. Departing almost entirely from the established norms of the Sonic universe Sonic Underground placed the character, along with two original characters Sonia and Manic, as a prince fighting against the tyrannical rule of Robotnik after he seized control of the planet, forcing most of its inhabitants into poverty and completely destroying its environment. Gritty stuff for a Saturday morning children’s cartoon. It seems odd to me that I’d force myself awake at 7am in the morning on a Saturday just to get up and fiddle with the tape recorder so I could collect the episodes and re-watch them all weekend. The series ran for forty episodes, meaning the overarching plot whereby the three heroes had to reunite with their long lost mother to fulfil a prophecy and defeat Robotnik, was tragically never fulfilled.
The characters also destroyed the robotic agents of the authoritarian regime using magical instruments. Fucking rock ‘n’ roll!
While Sonic was branching out to all kinds of other media, it was still the games that were my main focus. Sonic R sticks out as one title that can probably be classed as a gross misuse of the Sonic franchise and an affront to videogames everywhere. Sonic R was a third person racing game set over a handful of dodgy-looking 3D courses, with weird controls and a completely misplaced, if hilarious powerpop soundtrack. Looking back on it, it was a travesty. Playing it back then, it was more blue hedgehog to play with, so I loved it.
The best Sonic game of all time came to me on a PC disc. It was Sonic 3 along with Sonic and Knuckles combined into one, seamless game and it was, to me, the definitive 2D Sonic experience. The levels were varied, many and immaculately designed. The music was memorable, you could save your progress and there was hints at some kind of story going on. The game also introduced Knuckles the echidna, the third character that would be considered among the core iconic characters of the entire franchise who brought along with him another unique play-style as well as alternative level routes and a story running parallel to Sonic’s. Even after multiple playthroughs with all the characters I was surprised to learn years later that there was an extra last boss to face had you hunted down all the chaos emeralds hidden away among the levels, as well as the ability to become the insanely powerful Hyper Sonic, Super Tails and Hyper Knuckles. It was a game that kept on giving well after I thought I’d completed it and I still regularly dip into it today.
Later on other mascots such as Mario and Link of Legend of Zelda were barreling into 3D with stunning confidence and Sonic was sure to follow. Unfortunately it seemed that the Sonic Team had trouble translating the quick paced platforming of the 2D games into the third dimension. The Sonic Adventure games – the first fully 3D games in the series – had a schizophrenic camera and touchy controls. That didn’t stop me from enjoying the franchise as it made the rocky transition to 3D though. Staying over a friends house one evening I was introduced to Sonic Adventure 2 on the SEGA Dreamcast. A week later I had ordered a Dreamcast of my own from ebay.
Sonic Adventure 2 was split between the heroes – Sonic, Tails and Knuckles – and the villains – Shadow, the recently renamed Eggman, and Rouge – with each character having their different types of levels. Sonic and Shadow had the modern, three dimensional approximation of the standard Sonic speed running. Tails and Eggman strode around in small mechs shooting down robots and Knuckles and Rouge hunted for shards of emerald in a convoluted, if fairly fun, game of hot-or-cold. The Sonic/Shadow sections were the best parts of the game gameplay-wise, even if the controls could sometimes be difficult to deal with. The most enduring aspect of the game remains its music. Composed mostly by Japanese/American hard-rock band Crush 40, each level had its own theme from a variety of different genres, including rock, ska and hip-hop. Particularly note-worthy is the hard-rock anthemic title track Live and Learn which also plays during the final boss encounter. The track still gets regular play on my iPod.
Even after completing the game several times I had to continue replaying levels to support the surprisingly nuanced Chao breeding game. In a celestial sky bubble off the main map were a few gardens where you could hatch, breed and compete the charming Chao creatures, or use the Dreamcast’s unique memory card to take the pet around with you – tamagotchi style. As much as the main game and story was surprisingly entertaining, it was the Chao side-game and the fantastic musical tracks that cement it in my memory.
However the jarring transition to the third dimension was ultimately unkind to the blue blur. As the ill-fated Dreamcast faded from commercial relevence games such as the angsty gun-totting Shadow the Hedgehog - indicative of the franchises passage into adolescence – and the critically ignored Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) drove Sonic’s status as a gaming juggernaut somewhat into the ground. Even recent attempts to go back to Sonic’s roots such as Sonic 4, the self-styled true sequel to the classic Sonic 3, were largely underwhelming.
Sonic as a franchise may not carry as much punch as he once did, but I still can’t deny my love for the character. I still enjoy dipping into Sonic 3/Knuckles, regularly seek out remixes of some of the retro tunes and can’t wait until Sonic Adventure 2 is released on the Xbox Live Arcade. I dressed up (badly) as the character the last Halloween and optimistically carry his name on the back of my Ultimate Frisbee kit.
So now Sonic the Hedgehog is twenty years old and it’s nice to think that I’ve grown up alongside him. Today SEGA released a demo for Sonic Generations, a game featuring some of the best levels throughout Sonic’s 2D and 3D games. I’ve played the demo – a gorgeous looking and great playing remastering of the very first level I played all that time ago on Christmas morning. The game comes out later this year. When I play through its levels it might just be like blasting through an episodic, robot-filled, floating ring-strewn version of my entire life up to now, and I look forward to it.
Sonic the Hedgehog is twenty today. Happy 20th!
