Sonic The Hedgehog (1991)

Sonic The Hedgehog was released on June 23 1991. It was praised as a revolution for the platforming genre and is still today considered one of the best games ever made in its genre. I assume that everyone reading this have played this game at least once and know the basics of it.

Some of you might even have played it to the point where you can finish the first level, Green Hill Zone: Act 1, blindfolded on a faster time than anyone in your neighbourhood. Nevertheless, you have played it and chances are you enjoyed it. Now let’s take a sharp look at what that game was. In 1990, Sega decided that it was time to scrap their mascot “Alex Kidd” for something new to stand up against Nintendo’s fat old plumber. A contest was held internally to design the new mascot, and it didn’t take far until it was certain that it should at least be some form of animal.

Early artwork from Sega shows stuff like a purple rabbit, a bulldog and according to some sources he was once supposed to be a cat. Then came “Mr. Hedgehog” (Picture to the left) and he was the first concept for what then became Sonic The Hedgehog. His arch-nemesis Dr. Ivo Robotnik Picture to the right), or Eggman as his now more common nickname (as well as official name in Japan) is, was also decided upon through this contest evolving from a fat guy in pyjamas to the evil scientist whose name my nickname is based on.

When Sonic The Hedgehog was released for the Sega Megadrive (Sega Genesis in the US), players were presented with a wide colourful envirobment on their 16-bit machines as “Green Hill Zone: Act 1″ opened up with music so close to perfection in tune with the stage itself no one could hate what they saw. The blue little hedgehog that could run as fast as the speed of sound, hence his name, was easily manoeuvred thanks to smooth easy controls the game featured.

Every Zone in the game was unique in appearance and existed of 3 Acts, the third one being the act where you faced off with Dr. Robotnik in one of his machines. Enivronments changed from green fields to underground labyrinths and large metallic bases all shining with coluor and rich details. Spread across the Acts was also Robotnik’s evil robots called “Badniks” which served as the main enemies throughout the game, just as the environments these all had unique colour-schemes and designs.

There was also a lot of rings, rings served as Sonic’s health in the game and if you managed to collect over 50 you could get access to a special stage that could be your chance to get a Chaos Emerald, which was 6 secret stones that Robotnik was after, and if you got 100 rings you were granted 1 extra life. You had to be careful though, as one hit from one of Robotnik’s badniks or one small step on some spikes would have you lose all your rings and you only had a chance to gain back up to 20 of them, which could be quite a big loss.

And just like any game after the third generation of videogaming there was a story, and since a lot of people might not have cared for story back then, Sega made sure to not force it upon the player and throwing them right into the action of gameplay. The story forms out as the evil Dr. Robotnik want to control the world, he traps all the animals of South Island and turn them into robots to fight for him as he searches for the secret “Chaos Emeralds” which is said to hold secret power unlike anything else.

Sonic, a hedgehog born on Christmas Island known for being faster than anything else alive takes it as his own mission to stop the evil scientist. Sonic finds the 6 Chaos Emeralds and then enter the final room of Robotnik’s base to defeat him and setting the animals free. When done, Robotnik escapes and Sonic goes back to the Green Hills and uses the Chaos Emeralds to bring back life to South Island thus saving everyone.

Sonic The Hedgehog has been re-released on Cellphones, Xbox Live, Wii Virtual Console, Gameboy Advance (Wow, that was horrid), through collections and not to mention recreated through fangames. But nothing beats sitting down with an old Megadrive pad and playing the game as it was originally meant to be played. Sonic The Hedgehog was ahead of it’s time, and it set a high standard for the sequel which was set to come as early as the year after that.

Sonic The Hedgehog 2, Let’s rip apart that game on April 23′d, until then, goodbye.

-Torbjörn Karlsson