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A Look Back at Sonic the Hedgehog
SonicHero writes "Part of its Essential 50 series, 1UP has posted a very interesting look back at Sonic the Hedgehog. It discusses how the character came about, how Sega marketed him, and how Sonic ultimately changed the course of the 16-bit platform wars."
My favorite had to be the Sega CD game...and it had a kickass soundtrack!
You're all bastards!
On the same topic, Lost Levels had an interesting article awhile back on Sonic X-treme, the would-be flagship game for the Saturn and how it went through development hell and eventually ended up being scrapped. You can read about it here
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
still hum the theme to the Green Hill Zone? I swear that little ditty ranks up with the Super Mario theme for cachiness.
:).
Still, after the Green Hill zone the rest of the game felt a little rushed. Not bad, just not as fully realized as the Green Hill Zone. I remember seeing a magazine article with some of the features that didn't make it into the release cart. And the game just felt a little short (like most early Genesis games). Still an amazing game, and Sonic 2 more than made up for any short commings of the first game
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.. on me at least.
As someone who was a SNES owner and longtime Nintendo fan, I remember feeling jealous of the Genesis after reading some gaming magazines which showcased Sonic/Genesis as a faster and cooler system. It is true that at one point the Genesis became the more desirable console to own, largely due to Sonic. The pure speed of Sonic appealed to me as a new angle for side-scrollers.
What this article didn't touch on was how Nintendo's SNES eventually won in the end (due to its much more extensive 3rd party library and probably a few other things). I did not regret going with the SNES after DKC. Zelda (Link to the Past), Super Metroid, etc.
As much as I love Sonic, I can't stand what they keep doing to him.
My gf and I both own Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut and Sonic Heros (game cube games). While the games are both fun, the image that Sonic and friends give off is excessively Tacky. Tacky in a really annoying matter (ie: they have dumb sayings like "Lets Blast off with sonic speed! Alright! OK!")
And have you seen the sonic cartoon currently playing on The WB ? Those characters are beyond goofy and dumb. When I was a kind (10 years ago?), There used to be a really nice sonic cartoon on Saturday mornings (ABC broadcasted), and it had a much more serious look and feel (animation wise).
Sega & Sonic Team: Stop screwing up Sonic and licensing it to all the wrong people
Sunny Dubey
NO spellcheck of any kind was used, deal with it.
"2 - Sega Master System fails" - True, it didn't dent the NES's popularity in the US, but it was by no means a failure. Lots of sales, lots of support.
"3 - Sega Genesis is a moderate success due to Sonic the Hedgehog (but has no competition for 2 years)" - What rot. The Mega Drive quickly lassoed upwards of 80% of the market and didn't drop below 50% until a significant amount of time after the release of the SNES. That success was not due solely to one game, nor lack of competition. This is where Sega most significantly influenced the course of the 'console wars' - the MD completely wiped Nintendo's incumbent NES monopoly, and indisputably brought forward the development and release of the SNES.
"6 - Sega Genesis fails" - I think you'll find the machine was still healthy up until the point Sega prematurely pulled the plug on all their existing systems to concentrate all resources on the Saturn. Even the Playstation took a little while to inherit all of the 16-bit market.
Hmm, so every machine that doesn't have at least a 90% stranglehold on the market 'fails'? My advice would be don't get into any arguments with Apple fans.
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Right then.. Sonic.. what can we say about it.... hmm.
:( ). Labrynth still haunts me.. the jaws theme has NOTHING on that thing...
Sonic was so reconiseable in the early 90s (my era as a kid) that even my parents reconised him. I didn't have a genesis for quite a while (I had a SNES instead. I got the choice, a SNES or a pony... I picked the SNES and never looked back).
Everything was perfect in the original 2 sonic games (Sonic1 and 2). They did everything right and it was down right fun. I still look back and remember that video I got with a magazine showing hill top Zone and going "FUCK I WANT IT!". At the time I didn't have a mega drive (genesis) so I waited for the Master system version (took a while but it came).
So it wasa school day and I remember sitting there itching to get back to my MS, The weather was vile (rain and wind), the shops had a huge queue but my parents agreed to get it for me (I was disabled for some of my life so they never objected to my games playing).
So off I dashed, home I met and played Sonic 2 I did. Everything felt good and right with the world... Untill I got to that fucking hang glider. Even to this day I don't know how that fucking things works, but it sure drains lives.
So years later I get a Mega drive to go with my SNES (and like 9 games with it, so lots to play). and I remember thinking I'd just got a few videos, maybe a SNES game and a football or some crap I didn't want (my parents tend to get what I ask rather then general crap, it's easier and cheaper in the long run). So there I was with my Mega drive, playing sonic over and over.. cursing the spikes (why didn't we get the updated version with the fix?
Sonic 3... well what can I say.... lost it's feel. It was all "COOL KNUCKLES!" and then it became "..just fucking kill him already!" and so on and so forth. The feel of the originals (bright, colourful and damn fun) just seemed lost.
Apply knuckles and repeat 3 and you get the same. It's not sonic no more... I miss tails being a cute little kid who can't write (they will show the classic sonic on satalite here... Nothing says fun like Sonic telling kids not to be molested).
Sonic Xtreme gets canceled due to health and polotical issues, we all lose the saturn and in turn lose Sega.
Dreamcast comes out, everyone adores it, yay for dreamcast (still love mine). Sonic totally rockson it, keeps the original feel but adds in cool new elements (and loads of extra characters no one likes).
Rinse and repeat for the cube.
Advance comes ago... takes sonic 3s feel and then adds in attacks (WTF!?). It becomes almost a parody of it's self losing the fast feel more for "pick a path, any path you'll never remember them all because they all look the same".
Sonic Advance 2 and 3 comes out. I ignore
Sonic heroes come out.. every character gets majorly nerfed... I buy, find fun but semi regret..
So yea thats a better idea of sonic. It started out amazingly well, I have OC remixs of Sonic 1 and 2 music on Winamp all the time. I still adore Sonic 2 (and 1) and even set up my Mega drive to play them some times. After that Sonic starts to lose his edge on the market, loads of spin offs take place and it just feels cheap and nasty now.
Once when you said Sonic you had the picture of a blue hedgehog tapping his foot and waving his finger and then dashing off across the land scape, he WAS the cool guy of the 90s, to me that Sonic still is cool and always will be.
Now he's "just another platformer" blending in with all the others. His design has changed (you probably won't notice much, but the spikes are very different now), his character has become "lets do whats right!" rather then "Meh, it's fun lets annoy him some more and laugh" (Heroes even says Sonic is no longer a danger to robotnik and more of a "friendly rival" ffs!).
I'd point out all the flaws with the other characters (Shadow, Rouge, big etc.) but yanno, it's not worth it.
To me Son
I like muppets.
Does anybody else find it ironic that Sonic is now on the GameCube and GBA?
Just when you make it idiotproof, some idiot builds a better idiot.
"10 - Sony Playstation popularized, N64 fails"
30+ million units sold != failure.
"Derp de derp."
And don't forget that the playstation was origionaly a cd add in for the Super NES that nintendo backed out of. Sony the partner in the deal produced the playstation.
The CD addin was intended to allow the SNES to have the capibility to hold as much game data as the Sega Saturn.
The best sonic fan game I've seen is DIY Sonic. It's actually more fun to play than the original, although it doesn't seem finished.
Also worth pointing out is this website which lists some of the level which didn't make it into Sonic 2.
- Jax