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Sonic the Hedgehog Series
By admin | September 1, 2010
In 1991, the world was in a dark place. Nintendo had just released the Super Nintendo to compete with the Genesis, which Sega had released two years earlier. Sega’s sales were strong due to the vast amount of quality arcade ports that were released on the Genesis. Third party developers loved the open design of the system. The only problem was that the bright and colorful graphics of the SNES were overshining the dull color palette of the Genesis. It was like comparing Vanilla Ice to Beethoven. Sega knew that the Genesis had one hardware advantage over the SNES- the Genesis had a 7.61 mhz while the Super Nintendo had a sluggish 3.58 mhz. Anyone that is familiar with the SNES knew that the graphics processor more than made up for this difference, but at the time people didn’t know what a PPU was because we all still had floppy drives and VGA graphics. Sega needed a way to exploit the clockspeed difference. They eventually found the perfect marketing attack.
Sega created Sonic the Hedgehog. They gave him incredible speed. At the time everyone was familiar with Mario’s slow paced platforming gameplay. Sega created a fast and smooth game that focussed on speed and quick reflexes. When Sega released the game there were several commercials depicting Sonic as a hip new character and Mario as a boring old man. Sega tried to gain the market of young teens with this hip new image. The company even went as far as to claim that Sonic featured “blast processing” which is nothing more than a clever marketing term. In addition to this new image that Sega had created for themselves, Sonic gave them a mascot. A character to give the company a much-needed face. It was wise that Sega chose Sonic since the only other face for sale at the time was Billy Ray Cyrus, and everybody hates that guy while Sonic still remains a pleasant memory in our achy breaky hearts. Damn! am I ever gonna get that crappy song out of my head?
To see what a great contrast Sonic was, it should be compared to Super Mario World. Mario World was a superior game in many ways, but when you played it your Genesis-owner friends would make fun of you. They would say hurful things like: “Who wants to be a middle-aged plumber when I can be a small mammal that wears red shoes?”, “That game is lame!”, “Look how fat Mario is!”, “Why is Mario so slow?”, “Why does Mario ride that Gay dinosaur named after a gay guy from Japan?”. Many years and many tears later I have come to the conclusion that the marketing Sega used was more powerful than any programming or game design that went into the production of the game.
Sonic the Hedgehog
Now that we have discussed Sega’s brilliant and cruel marketing techniques, lets talk about the game itself. Sonic the Hedgehog featured bright graphics that looked very out of place on the Genesis. Most games featured dull green-based color schemes and blurry sprites- Sonic was something different entirely. The levels were far larger than any Mario had ever ventured into and the enemies were large as well. After years of jumping on turtles, gamers wanted something different. We now fought cyborgs that were created using the small animal life on Mobius. Most people don’t even know that Sonic is not an earth hedgehog but an alien being hell bent on fighting doctor Robotnik. Robotnik sounds like the name of a Slavic appliance company that sells crappy dishwashers. The name worked as doctor Robotnik was on the list of most hated villians right up there with Bowser (or more recently The King Koopa formerly known as Bowser).
I remember going to the store with my mom after she picked me up from the principal’s office and seeing Sonic for the first time. I just got a new pair of L.A. Gear shoes when I walked by the game display that used to hold Altered Beast. I saw a bright and colorful title screen. I grabbed the claw-shaped controller and pressed the start button. The game began and it was tough to get used to the speed. The control was so smooth and the water in the background was gorgeous. I’ll never forget the song in the first level. Once you reach the end you get to fight Dr. Robotnik. It was kind of strange that with all that cybernetic technology that Dr. Robotnik possessed, the best weapon he could come up with was a stupid ball hanging from his egg ship. And people said Mario was lame?
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Sales of the Genesis kept gaining momentum, and to capitalize on the Sonic craze, the company released a sequel titled Sonic 2. Once you get past the terribly-clever title you will notice that Sonic has a new pal- a fox with two tails named Miles. Or more commonly referred to as “Tails”. The addition of Tails added new possibilities for the series. With Tails, a second player could pick up the second controller and help fight enemies. The only drawback was that Sonic was so much faster than Tails that the second player would get left in the dust until the boss battles. The game also featured a two-player race mode with split-screen support. In addition, players were treated with the surprisingly fun half-pipe bonus level. In the bonus level, both players got to compete to see who could collect the most rings. This created many fights between siblings (many younger brothers foolishly punched their big brothers and thus received a well deserved wedgie).
Sonic 2 featured even bigger levels than its predecessor. In addition to being larger, they were also more creative and there was a lot more variety. One of the levels that stands out is the Casino Night Zone. This level caused my mom to throw a fit because it encouraged minors to gamble. Children everywhere were rolling in balls on the ground and spiking their hair. Some may blame Sega for this behavior instead of their own parenting skills. The fact is that the effect Sonic had on children was nothing compared to the influence of Mario and Pac-Man. Pac-Man taught kids that it’s ok to eat unmarked pills and chase ghosts around a dark maze. Mario taught kids that if they jumped into large sewer pipes that they could go to the magical Mushroom Kingdom but instead they just end up grounded and covered in poopy. That was the worst summer of my life.
After the release of Sonic 2, Sega took even more aggressive advertisement methods. They had commercials depicting Nintendo fans as nerds who wear glasses with tape down the middle while Sega fans are 13 year old boys that have mullets and acid wash jeans. They also wear bandannas for some reason. Sega even released Sonic on its portable console known as the Game Gear. The Game Gear Sonic games were stripped down versions of the console games that still had a lot of fun in them. Sega had one commercial that showed people throwing away Gameboys because they had purchased the colorful Game Gear.
The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (animated series)
Sega then ventured into other marketing forms. The first was an animated series to support an action figure sales market. The Sonic cartoon did so well that there were two versions being made- one was owned by ABC and aired on Saturday mornings and had a dark feel to it. The land scape was cold and made of metal. The comic book that came out a few months earlier started out like the weekday series but then matured into the Saturday morning version. Many young boys had strange feelings when they looked at Sonic’s new friend named Sally.
This series was a huge contrast to the weekday morning series that aired on Fox Kids. This series featured more of a humorous feel, and Robotnik was depicted as being stupid rather than being very evil. To my knowledge both series featured the voice of Jaleel White as Sonic. Wow no one saw that one coming. Who would have thought that Urkel would be Sonic’s voice? Well I sure as hell didn’t. Many children spent long months in therapy to get over the fact that was really Urkel.
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Sonic the Hedgehog 3
Now that Sonic had a few sequels and two animated series, there was no place to go but down, right? Wrong! The next game took things to a whole new level. The third installment to the Sonic series was Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Once again, a game with a well thought out title. This game had a very unique look to it. The characters were 3D rendered sprites similar to the ones used in Donkey Kong Country. They had that sparkly look to them that was very pleasing to the eye. The levels were even larger and more complex. The days of holding down the right button and beating the game in your sleep were over.
Another addition that was very welcome was the ability to have Tails grab Sonic and cary him to higher levels. This really added a lot of replay value since you could beat the game with Sonic, Tails or both at the same time. The 3D bonus levels allowed Sonic and Tails to earn Chaos Emeralds. If you collect all the Chaos Emeralds you are able to be Super Sonic or Super Tails. At the beginning of Sonic 3, you meet Knuckles who is the guardian of the floating island. He has been deceived by Dr. Robotnik that Sonic took the Emeralds. The truth is that Dr. Robotknik stole the large Emeralds to use them as a power source for his ultimate weapon.
Sonic and Knuckles
Sonic 3 was a great game and it was compared to Donkey Kong Country by the critics. DKC had far superior graphics and sound but it was a completely different experience than Sonic 3. In an effort to steal Nintendo’s sales, they released a game called Sonic and Knuckles. This game featured the ability to choose between Sonic and Knuckles. Sonic had more speed but Knuckles could glide and climb walls. The first level was just gorgeous and they just kept coming. Each level was challenging but the game was still quite short- equally as short as Sonic 3.
The real surprise was that players could put the Sonic 3 cartridge on top of Sonic and Knuckles and play both games together from beginning to end. Together these two games are more than 15 levels. When the two games were together, you could earn the emeralds from Sonic 3 and the Super Emeralds from Sonic and Knuckles. If you earned both, you could be Hyper Sonic. Sounds lame but actually it was a pretty powerful upgrade.
In addition to being playable with Sonic 3, you could add Sonic and Knuckles to the Sonic 2 cartridge. This lets you play as Knuckles and play the game with his unique abilities. Unfortunately, many gamers felt it was two pricey to buy both but there was a gap of several months between the release dates. Most Genesis gamers already finished Sonic 3 and wanted more and this game gave them exactly what they asked for. This was the exact opposite of Sonic CD.
Sonic 3D Blast
Then the series took a turn for the worst. Just when you thought Sonic would be remembered as never having a bad title in the series, Sega dropped the bomb. A shit bomb that is. Or more specifically Sonic 3D Blast. 3D blast was released on both the Saturn and the Genesis and both versions sucked. Most people loved the large size of Sonic’s environments. The levels in 3D blast were very small and pretty dull.
The hardware of the Genesis didn’t do well with the 3D Graphics. Sonic was not only slower than normal, but slower than an old lady driving on Sunday. To add to the problem of level design and speed, Sonic could only face about 7 enemies in each level. To the game’s credit, the graphics were pretty good. There were times when your jaw would drop in disbelief. The colors were a little dull but that wasn’t the problem. The game just wasn’t exciting. It was still fun to play but it just didn’t have the fun atmosphere that made the other games stand out. If you find it at a garage sale it’s worth a cheap purchase, just not full price.
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Sonic on the Modern Consoles
The Sonic series moved on to the Dreamcast console and now on to all three modern platforms. Versions of the older games can be found on PC CDROM or on the Dreamcast. Sonic Heroes is a return to the old formula with massive 3D levels and lots of enemies. This game deserves a look.
Topics: Nintendo Game, Retro games | No Comments »