My Sonic Fan-Girl Chronicles, Bonus Chapter: Favorite Stages of Sonic the Hedgehog Games I’ve Played

 
• Sonic the Hedgehog (1991): Green Hill Zone
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2: TIE: Oil Ocean Zone and Metropolis Zone
• Sonic  the Hedgehog 3: TIE: Hydrocity and Ice Cap Zone
• Sonic & Knuckles: Lava Reef Zone for both Knuckles and Sonic
• Sonic 3D Blast: Diamond Dust Zone (the music makes me smile)
• Sonic Adventure: NiGHTS Pinball Game!!! (I know, it’s not a stage, but…it’s NiGHTS!)
• Sonic Adventure 2: TIE: Green Forest for Sonic; White Jungle for Shadow
• Sonic Unleashed: Dragon Road-Day (sometimes frustrating but the song makes me happy J)
• Sonic Rivals 2: TIE: Mystic Haunt Zone Acts 1 and 3 (and Act 2 is my favorite Battle stage in this game because I like the music; I often have Sonic, Shadow and Silver fight there.) And the Chaotic Inferno Zone because I like the level design and music there too.
• Sonic Generations:  Green Hill Zone Act 2 (gotta go fass!)

 

The next bonus chapter may be about my least favorite stages from Sonic games I've played.

Does anyone have a favorite Sonic stage they want to share and why?

My Sonic Fan-Girl Chronicles, Chapter 8—2001, The Dreamcast and Sonic Adventure: It’s Archie Comics’ fault!

In late June 2001 at the end of our tenth-grade school year, my sister and I received #98 of the Sonic the Hedgehog comic book from Archie Comic.   Issue #98 featured a tie-in with the story for Sonic Adventure 2.  We were very curious about this other male hedgehog that was added to the cast of characters.  Who is this Shadow?  Of course not all hedgehogs are blue (ha ha) but I wondered why Shadow was colored black and red.  Actually, in the comic book he was more like dark navy blue and red.  Oh no, an evil hedgehog who looked like Sonic!  Usually if there was any kind of Sonic doppelganger, it would be a mechanical version like Robo Sonic or Metal Sonic.  But this was a flesh and blood character, not a robot.

Issues #79-84 featured the tie-in with the first Sonic Adventure.  Of course, we read the comics before we got a SEGA Dreamcast, so we were already exposed to the new form of Super Sonic before playing the SA Last Story.   I wrote about my SEGA Dreamcast experience often in my diary—just those three Sonic games, because those were the only games we played for that console.  Now, I don’t have too good of a memory for what happened about getting the new Dreamcast and Sonic Adventure, Sonic Shuffle and later, Sonic Adventure 2.   Fortunately, those memories are kept secure in my diary.  I was able to find it, and I’m going to share an excerpt from it here…since I’m so brave ;)

★ July 3, 2001  OHMYGOD, I cannot sit still, in fact I couldn’t even eat my breakfast this morning.  Wanna know why?  I’ll tell you know I can’t contain myself…WE GOT DREAMCAST!!

Okay—it all began when Sunday [July 1^st], I saw this BestBuy sales papers thing and, I looked in it and saw a sale for SA2.  Then I looked above that, and I noticed something even bigger…a Sonic Pack, complete w/ the Dreamcast machine including SA and Sonic Shuffle, as well as a playable demo of SA2!!  Ahhghh!  The perfect opportunity!  I told [Sis] that perhaps if we put our own money into all that and ask our parents if we can buy it, maybe there’s a chance that…well…we can own the new Dreamcast system after all.  So [Sis] [and I] secretly talked to each other about any pros and cons of those games—a lot of pros, too.  It was decided that Monday would be the day to tell our parents about it, so yesturday (sic) right after dinner, I brought it up, and [Sis] and I told them about the stuff.  And guess what?  They approved!

[Sis] and I were absolutely overjoyed and excited.  We beamed “Oh my god, this is GREAT!  This is soooo cool!”  It was hard for me to sleep calm, keeping in mind it was really warm in my room last night, plus I was really excited ‘bout gettin’ Dreamcast and 2 ¼ Sonic games.  Think what kind of music/songs are gonna be heard, and everything.  I love Sonic.  Just knowing the fact that sometime this week we will own [the] SEGA Dreamcast [console] made me the happiest girl in the neighborhood.

Well, this morning didn’t start out so hot.  I was so nervous that when I started having cereal, I got gas that was bad enough for me to run to the bathroom.  It turned to an upset stomach and I was forced to vomit my breakfast—what little of it I ate.  I felt much better after that, and after a shower and clothes, I went with Mom and [Sis] to BestBuy to get the Sonic Pack.  ★

The next main chapter, Chapter 9, will be about Sonic Adventure.

The Gaming Historian: The History of Sonic the Hedgehog

The other day I was trying out how my link worked for a 1992 TV ad of the handheld LCD Sonic game, (I posted about it here), and after watching the video, YouTube recommended several more videos, and I decided to check one out.  The Gaming Historian did a four-part series on Sonic the Hedgehog—from his SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive days to his SEGA Dreamcast days and a bit beyond.  In my opinion, this is an entertaining and well-organized presentation on Sonic’s history, mentioning the names in SEGA and Sonic Team who brought Sonic into the video game world and into many gamers’ hearts (like mine!).  I liked how he talks about how Tails was created and the introduction to Knuckles the Echidna.  There were even a couple of Sonic video games I’ve never heard of until watching the second half of the series.

 

Here is Part 1, about 10 minutes long.   If interested, you can watch the other three parts of the series too (they are between seven to nine minutes each).  Also, check out more of the videos from The Gaming Historian YouTube channel. He may have some nice history lessons on your favorite childhood video games!

 

My Sonic Fan-Girl Chronicles, Bonus Chapter: Espio the Chameleon—The reason I like chameleons

So….purple is my favorite color.  Yep.  And I guess in 1995 it helped me notice this chameleon character from Knuckles Chaotix, a purple chameleon named Espio.  Eventually I learned that his name is part of the word “espionage”, spying.  Makes sense; chameleons blend in with their immediate surroundings, so that name totally goes with him, and nowadays, he’s been portrayed as a ninja character, sporting ninja stars and ninja leave-blades and others of the sort.  But I think it makes him cooler than before.

See…way back in 1995 I thought he was a girl.  I was reading a video game magazine and found a description for the Knuckles Chaotix video game for the SEGA 32X system.  When it mentioned controlling the characters, it used the pronouns “ him/her.”  It must have confused me, because if all the other characters were male then it must mean that the purple character is a female.  (Really it doesn’t matter, there’s nothing wrong with males wearing purple at all).  The peach-colored area of this chameleon’s chest was heart-shaped like a female character in the Sonic universe might have (think Sally Acorn of Sonic SAT AM fame).  So for a while, yeah, I thought Espio was a girl.  A very kinda naked, very cranky-looking girl.

I used to give him a nickname, because I’d get nervous (shy, blush) whenever I said his name, so for a while I called him “Metrio.”  It rhymed with “Espio” didn’t it? Around then I’ve heard of the word “metro” before but I didn’t understand what it meant.  I was…lessee, 1996…I was around 10 or 11 years old.

I made up a song about the Chaotix Team too, or was it just Espio?  (Actually a lot of Sonic-related characters or stuff had inspired original music from Sis and me…all of which we now both agree is stupid, but hey, we were kids and had fun with it.)

Years later when he makes an appearance in Sonic Heroes, his voice sounds pretty masculine.  Maybe it helps.   What is his actual age, anyways?   I was sort of disappointed that his voice sounded as deep as it did, but over time I got used to it.  Even now I like his voice in Sonic Rivals 2 and then Sonic Generations when Sonic has to shine searchlights on him and do a homing attack to progress through the challenge. 

It’s funny…ever since I was fascinated with Espio, it became apparent over time that the chameleon turned out to be my favorite lizard, really my favorite reptile.  In fact, if someone asked me if I had a favorite dinosaur, I’d say mine is a triceratops—because it reminds me of the chameleon.  Hey…maybe the chameleon might be a distant descendant of the triceratops, but I dunno.  That is a job for research at a later time, I suppose.  They certainly didn’t have skin that blended with their surroundings.  I thought it was  so interesting that chameleons can do that.  Heh.   Sort of makes me want to read up on chameleons now.  How they do dat?  How do they change the color of their skin to match the color on the thing they stand on?  Didn’t a couple of TV ads this year feature chameleons?  (A paint commercial and one other company.)

So…that’s my history on how I became a fan of Espio the Chameleon.  Pretty cool, huh? …  Or weird.  Whichever is closer.

Sonic the Hedgehog Commercial 1992 -Tiger Electronic Game-

http://www.youtube.com/v/iLIA4wP22Ds?version=3&autohide=1&autohide=1&showinfo=1&autoplay=1&feature=share&attribution_tag=Ol46rsYnd4DN4_DO3BOOcQ


Hey readers,

Remember the handheld Sonic video game that I posted about in Chapter 2 of my Sonic Fan-Girl Chronicles?  Well, here is a TV ad from 1992 uploaded from YouTube channel E Tank.  This is the very video game I was talking about in Chapter 2!!!   I'm so excited to find it here!

You curious?  If you haven't seen it yet, see it now! :3  It's a blast from the past.

My Sonic Fan-Girl Chronicles, Chapter 7: 1997—Sonic 3D Blast, for good grades, straight A’s in fact

The first time I knew about Sonic 3D Blast (or anything of it) was when Dad rented the game from Blockbuster Video.   It was on a school day, and like I said in an earlier post, we didn’t want to associate Sonic with anything school-related—even a school day.  I guess Dad thought it was a nice surprise for us, but we were too “shy” to even try it.  So while we were doing homework at the dinner table, Dad tried out the game himself.  I heard the music of what I found out later was Sonic using an Invincibility item.  Eventually Dad called us in to listen to something that was on the Sound Test, which turned out to be the music from Volcano Valley Act 2.  I thought it sounded nice.  But in the back of my mind I knew I still had some more homework to do, so I got out the den, pulling myself away from the world of Sonic once again.

I forgot what the exact date was (probably not important), but I know it was after I finished sixth grade that our report cards showed we had straight As.  It may have been the only time we got all “A”s on our report card, but it was a memorable one too.   Of course our parent saw the report cards.  A few days after the last day of school for the school year, our parents gave us a gift we were to share.  We were confused because it was some few weeks after we turned 12 years old.  What kind of present was this going to be?

I think it was at night, too.  We tore the wrapping paper together and saw that it was a Sonic game—Sonic 3D Blast.  We were so excited to have a fourth Sonic game for our SEGA Genesis.  It meant new Sonic music to look forward to, another instruction manual to read (I still enjoy reading instruction manuals for video games), basically more Sonic games to choose from when we want to play a video game (I think by then we just about stopped using the Nintendo).

What are my favorite tracks from Sonic 3D Blast?  The Sound Test/soundtrack is one of the best in the Sonic SEGA Genesis era, next to Sonic 3.   There was more variety instruments used in the music.  I love the music for Rusty Ruin Act 1, Volcano Valley Act 2, both Acts of Gene Gadget, and both Acts of the last stage (Panic Puppet?), and Dr. Robotnik Boss #2.    Oh oh oh!  And the song for Final Fight!  Its rhythm was so different than those used in other boss battles.  It was quite hard to fight Robotnik in the Final Fight the way Sonic has to move in Sonic 3D Blast, but once I memorized the patterns, it was almost a piece of cake.

Sonic 3D Blast was a blast—except—NO SUPER SONIC!!  Where the $@&%!  was Super Sonic in this game?!  I got all the Chaos Emeralds.  All seven of them!  I reached the Final Fight stage.  So where was Super Sonic?!  You’d think after Sonic 2 and 3 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles we’d get a Super Sonic  >:(

And the next disappointment:  the end credits music.  No medley?  No upbeat song that makes me wanna shake my buns?  What is this?  Well, that was anti-climactic.  For me it meant that there was not much of a reason to finish the game anymore.  I was so used to having a Super Sonic since Sonic 2 and Sonic 3. But—and I think it makes sense—it may have been difficult to incorporate Super Sonic in a video game that allowed Sonic to run in any direction?  Is that it?  U_U  Hmm…  Otherwise the thing that motivated me the most was hearing the music.  And the 3-D-ness of it all, I guess.

An article about reflection on Sonic the Hedgehog, from Videogameologists.com

I’ve got another treat for you Sonic fans out there—I’m not the only who reminisce (and still is reminiscing) about my experience/thoughts/memories on playing Sonic the Hedgehog video games!  The other day I came across this article by Videogameologists.com writer Erik G. about the 21 years that Sonic has been around (the article was written in 2012, but I still find it relevant).  Maybe it was because I am also doing my own reminiscing of Sonic games on Cyborg Haven, but I was so spazzed to read this article and it made me smile.

The article is titled, "Looking Back at 21 Years of Sonic And What Made Him Great".  I have to highlight one of Erik’s sentences in this post.  It made me nod my head for some seconds because it is sooo true!

 

“Sonic games aren’t about speed, but flow. Yes Sonic runs fast, but you aren’t running fast when you run into an enemy or get poked by a spike trap. Instead, you get through the stages the fastest by knowing where thing are ahead of time and knowing what to do.”

 

Yes!  Trial and error, baby!  An excellent learning tool when playing video games! In order to get the best rating I can (so I can get an S rating and/or a medal), I need to play the stage once through and then subsequent times afterward while the layout is still very fresh in my mind.  If I’m lucky if I haven’t played the game for a while, I’d know the lay out of the stage better because I had Sonic run through it enough times to know when to jump or turn or activate a Boost.

 

Anyway, in his article Erik goes through his thoughts on Sonic’s 21 (then) years in the video game universe, mainly the console games (SEGA Genesis, SEGA Dreamcast, the Nintendo Wii, and Playstation 3).  It’s a nice read and made me feel good about being a Sonic fan.   If you read it and like his article, I suggest you share it with other fans of Sonic as well, those who love him and especially those who need to re-appreciate the Sonic video game franchise for what it was, what it is now and what it will become.  Maybe there will be less Sonic-haters out there…?

 

http://www.videogameologists.com/2012/06/23/looking-back-at-21-years-of-sonic-and-what-made-him-great/

 

BONUS BIT:  I really like that I am not alone with Sonic Adventure 2 being my favorite game for the SEGA Dreamcast.  For me, it’s all because of Shadow—it was just so interesting that there was another hedgehog for Sonic to get to know besides that Amy Rose, let alone another male hedgehog.  He was new and mysterious and perpetually frowning.  Nyawww, so cute (there goes my fan-girl self, going all gaga). 

 

I want to write a separate Bonus Chapter for my thoughts/memories on Shadow the Hedgehog, because I love him so much.  :3  He deserves a post or two from me.  (Did you see my list near the bottom right of Cyborg Haven?  I cried after I beat Sonic Adventure 2.  Because Shadow.)

 

Cyborg Haven Update 10-20-2013

     Hi.  Another Cyborg Haven Update.  Remember those?  Well, this update is going to be more of a teaser than an update.  Here is a list of topics for Bonus Chapters that I am planning to post in between the main chapters of my Sonic fan-girl chronicles:

 

-Galaxy Force II

 

-Favorite Stages of Sonic the Hedgehog games

 

-The Music of Sonic 3

 

-Shadow the Hedgehog, from Sonic Adventure 2 and beyond

 

-Espio the Chameleon

 

-NiGHTS craziness begins

 

These have special places in my memory’s heart where SEGA Genesis and SEGA Dreamcast memories are kept.  They are things that are pleasant and hard to forget.  They make me happy when I think back about the early days of owning a Genesis and a Dreamcast.

My Sonic Fan-Girl Chronicles, Chapter 6: 1994—Sonic & Knuckles

Note: I am posting my memories about this game today because…well, it’s the anniversary of the release date for Sonic & Knuckles!

Booster shots.  We hated them when we were kids.  But we were due for one.  My sister and I decided that as a reward for going through with getting a booster shot, we’d buy Sonic & Knuckles (or at least Mom and Dad would buy it for us).  Our parents thought it was a good idea to have that to look forward to after a scary event.  (Tch, I’m not afraid of shots anymore if I ever needed more.)

Sonic & Knuckles was released October 18, 1994.  I remember mainly because of the instruction manual for Sonic Mega Collection Plus, but I can confirm it because I remember seeing an ad for it in a video game magazine Dad bought for us a couple of months before.   Our appointment for a booster shot was on Halloween day, October 31^st, so it was on that day that we got Sonic & Knuckles—so that we wouldn’t have to worry about renting it or returning it to Blockbuster Video or the Warehouse.  Other than the handheld Sonic game we got in Hanukkah 1992, Sonic & Knuckles was the first console Sonic game we played without renting it—because duh, it was Sonic the Hedgehog, the only video game series we loyally played on the SEGA Genesis.

Ha hah, as awkward would have it, we were too “shy” to try the game out, so Dad tried it out first.  The longer we watched him play the first Zone, the more we wanted to play.  It was a Sunday night, I remember; maybe that’s why we were nervous about playing the game because the next day we had school.  We were the kind of fangirls that if we saw a boy wearing a Sonic the Hedgehog T-shirt (yeah, boys, not girls for some reason), we’d turn away bashfully.  Yeah, I know, it’s weird.  Anything Sonic would belong in our home, so if we saw Sonic at school, it totally made us nervous.   It was like, “What’s he doing here?”

I played as Knuckles first, maybe because he had the ability to glide and climb, and he could break more barriers than Sonic could here.  But the game was shorter than in Sonic’s mode.  The last stage was the Sky Sanctuary, which featured the final boss, Metal Sonic.  Uh, Mecha Sonic?  I dunno anymore, I’m pretty sure he was called Metal Sonic because of a funny song Sis sang about him.  That’s how I remember he was called Metal Sonic.  Isn’t Mecha Sonic from Sonic CD (another classic Sonic game I never played and may never, sadly)?

The synths for the music of Final Boss fight part one….awesome!!!!  And Doomsday Zone?!!!  :O!!  I enjoyed the music thinking I’d never hear it again; at the same time, I had to keep Sonic alive, so I was distracted often by the concentration of not losing a life, or at least keeping my rings.

When I played as Sonic the game was longer.  There was the full Sky Sanctuary and then the Death Egg Zone, and then when you get all 7 Super Emeralds, the last zone was the Doomsday Zone.  The music from the Death Egg Zone gave me the same feeling/tempo as the Metropolis Zone from Sonic 2.

Oh my goodness…the Lock-on feature.  It was awesome.  But I gotta say, we only experienced Knuckles the Echidna in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 before we got our very own Sonic 3 and played Sonic 3 & Knuckles.  I forgot how long it took for me to beat Sonic 3 and Knuckles.  But I needed a guide for the 7 Chaos Emeralds and the 7 Super Emeralds.  I forgot what magazine I used, but it had a map of all the blue balls—I mean, blue spheres, red spheres and bounce/star spheres.  Trial and error too—lots of it.  Hyper Sonic was a new thing for us because we were like: there is a Sonic faster than Super Sonic!  Whut?!  But he had his limitations: he could still run out of rings, which means that if he does, he changes back into Sonic and falls, consequently losing a life.  Didn’t want dat.  No.

My Sonic Fan-Girl Chronicles: Chapter 5...1994—Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and OMG Tails Could Fly!

(The box says Sonic the Hedgehog 3, but the title screen says SONIC 3.  Um…)

The next video game my dad rented for me and my sister in the Sonic the Hedgehog series was Sonic the Hedgehog 3.  By then the TV set from the den was moved to the living room because of the 1994 Northridge Earthquake.  We would have loved to own this game too, but… how much did video games cost in 1994?  Was it $40?  $50?  Not to mention that Sonic 3 was hard to come by than time in toy stores.   So Sonic 3 was rented a few times at least, for three days each time.  We tried to buy it later and, at our favorite Toys R Us, they didn’t have it, but the salesman let us try a Duck Tails game and Mickey Mousecapades.   We ended up with the Mickey Mouse game, and it was okay.  I beat it at least twice.  But I digress…

Sonic started out as Super Sonic?  Wow, that was interesting.  We never saw Super Sonic unless he had all seven Chaos Emeralds and at least 50 rings.  We didn’t realize that it took place after the events of Sonic 2—granted that one finishes Sonic 2 with the conditions to turn into Super Sonic.

The thing that blue—I mean, blew—us away about the game was the new player move that was given to Tails.  I was playing as Tails in Angel Island Act 2, and at one instant I accidentally pressed the jump button twice, and then Tails was airborne for a few moments, with his two tails spinning like a helicopter.  I was like, what?  He’s did that before, but not while I controlled him during gameplay.   I thought nothing of it until about another minute or two later I did a repeat and kept pushing the jump button and—Tails was flying?  I was making him fly?!  That was so cool!!  For the rest of the time the game was rented I looked forward to playing the game again just to play as Tails and make him fly…

And swim!  Tails could swim, too!  Of course Sonic couldn’t.  I forgot:  have we ever had an argument over who was going to play as Tails or Sonic during the co-op mode?  I feel like we did, at least once if not any more.  We also eventually learned that Tails could carry Sonic to a higher part of the levels he can’t reach by himself.  That was really co-op!

Man, I really loved making Sonic run on top of the water in the Hydrocity Zone… there was something so right about it.  Like, he’s fast enough to do that; because when he slows down he’s gonna sink.  Whenever I played in the Hydrocity Zone I felt all was right with the world.  I loved all the blues and greens that were used in designing the zone.  It was a nice distraction from school stuff.

I also loved the icy snowy environment in Ice Cap Zone (and the music…!  But there will be a separate post about the music of Sonic 3 later in Cyborg Haven.)

On a Sunday night before a school morning, the third night of the rental of Sonic 3, I was at the Launch Base Zone, Act 2.  I was taking a while to beat the final battle against Dr. Robotnik.  I was afraid we were never going to see the end of the video game.  Time was running out.  I was on my last life…and beat the game with one Ring and one second to spare.  It…was…awesome!   My sister and I were thrilled to hear a new End Credits song.  It wasn’t a medley of music from the video game.  It was a stand-alone track altogether.  

I remember hoping that on Christmas of 1995 we would get Sonic 3 as a present.  We did get a video game, but it was Zoop, a puzzle–type game.   I, I mean we, were disappointed.  After all that time that Sonic 3 was around, why didn’t we get a copy yet?  (I eventually asked one of my parents about it and that’s when I found out that it was hard to find during those years).

When did we get it?  It had to have been on a birthday because I certainly don’t remember receiving it on a holiday.  I’ll have to really think back or go back to a really old journal to find out on what occasion we ended up getting our very own Sonic 3.

My Sonic Fan-Girl Chronicles: Chapter 4—The Christmas of our very own SEGA Genesis and Sonic 2

This chapter in my Fan-Girl Chronicles for Sonic the Hedgehog is probably the most pivotal chapter of them all.

For the rest of the year of 1993, the SEGA Genesis and Sonic 2 were rented at least a couple more times, always on a weekend.  It was pretty much the only video game we played; nothing topped Sonic 2 for me and sis for the rest of the year.  I mean, we had some Nintendo games but we either beat them before or just were not so amazed by them anymore.  Golf…hockey…By then Super Mario Bros.  was overdone and we still didn’t beat that game.

It was holiday season 1993, winter break for our 3^rd-grade school year.  We were good girls and had asked for the SEGA Genesis and Sonic 2 for Christmas.  I wasn’t very optimistic about it, but it was worth a try.  So when my sister and I opened our presents, we were of course disappointed that we didn’t get those two things we asked for.

Wait!  We missed a large present that was placed behind the Christmas tree.  It was for both of us, from Mom and Dad.  We exchanged glances.  What could it be?  We tore open the present…

JOOOYYYYYY! (I think by then we watched Ren & Stimpy)

It turned out it was a SEGA bundle:  a SEGA Genesis video game console with a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 included.  Sonic was on the box!  And Tails! 

I forgot if I played the video game that same Christmas day or not.  I think I did.  It was Sonic 2!  And I forgot how far I reached too, unfortunately.  How long did it take for me to finish the game…?  For a long while Sonic 2 was the only SEGA video game we owned, and from time to time we rented other SEGA Genesis video games.

Soon we were able to get a second controller so one could play as Sonic and one could play as Tails in co-op, or we could play the 2-player mode and have friendly competition.

By the way…I gotta say that I loved it when I got all 7 Chaos Emeralds and when Super Sonic poses at the end movie of Sonic 2.  The first time I saw that I thought it was so cute that I planned to finish the game all over again one day so I can take a picture of Super Sonic posing on the TV screen with my kiddie Vivatar camera.  With the kind of TV it was, all attempts were unsuccessful, as the screen appeared gray.

Oh yeah…one other detail.  The SEGA Genesis was actually hooked up to the TV set in our parents’ bedroom, where our Nintendo was.  So we couldn’t play it whenever we wanted to, even on a weekend.

This changed with the occurrence of the ’94 Northridge Earthquake.  All the bedrooms, kitchen and the den were all a mess.  We ended up moving the TV set from the den into the living room, which was the least messy (less stuff to fall and break from the earthquake).  It was then that the SEGA Genesis was hooked up to the [den’s] TV set.   And I think later the Nintendo was reconnected to the TV in our parents’ room.  This way either game console had a TV.

I also remember playing Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine while the den’s TV was still in the living room.  It was a beautiful Saturday morning, actually.  My sister played this game while I blew bubbles in the living room, and then I discovered something fun: I moistened the bathroom counter and blew a bubble so big that when I placed it down on the wet counter and it created a bubble dome, and we eventually called this bubble game crystal ball (by the way, thanks Sis, for reminding me it was called crystal ball!).

And it was also there, in the living room couple months later, that we first rented and played Sonic the Hedgehog 3.  Would you like to read the story of our first taste of Sonic 3?  That will have to wait for another chapter in my Fan-Girl Chronicles for Sonic the Hedgehog.

Stay tuned and stay cool.  :3 

My Sonic Fan-Girl Chronicles: Chapter 3—The Summer of Sonic the Hedgehog 2

June 30^th, 1993.  It was the last day of second grade.  The 2^nd –grade class was having a pizza party at Dearborn Recreational Park.  It was the Bigfoot pizza from Pizza Hut.

You know why I remembered those details?  Because this was the day that, after the last day of school until the summer break, my sister and I came home to find that Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was rented along with the SEGA Genesis!!!  A store called the Warehouse used to be near our home, where we could buy VHS cassettes or video games, or rent them as well as video game consoles.   From then on it became the go-to place to rent video games or movies (and eventually buy music CDs when they were popular, until the store closed in the early 2000s.

We had summer homework to do: we had to work on these cursive workbooks over summer break because by 3^rd grade we had to be familiar with cursive handwriting.  We weren’t allowed to start playing Sonic 2 for the first time  until we finished a certain amount of the workbook beforehand (I think I remember now that same summer was a second cartoon series of My Little Pony—no, NOT Friendship is Magic).

“My little pony, my little pony, my little pony tales…”      *shudders (Oh my god we watched that?)

So, yeah…Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was the first console Sonic game I ever played, personally (since my sister played Sonic the Hedgehog for a little while back in 1991).  I think I played it first before my sister, I don’t remember exactly.  But we were ecstatic to be able to play a console Sonic game.   Granted it was rented for three days, but still, our summer break was young and I was out of my second-grade teacher’s sight, and no more homework to turn in, and everything was great (yeah, that’s how I felt).  The first level was similar to the first level of the 1991 Sonic the Hedgehog: blue sky, green grass and trees, water and mountains in the background.  It’s the Sonic-franchise tradition, I’m going to guess.

According to the instruction manual of Sonic Mega Collection Plus (which I refer to for some of the facts like the release dates), the spin-dash move was introduced in Sonic 2—the first game didn’t have that.  Which is why whenever I try to play Sonic 1, I forget he can’t spindash.  Boo.

We had this game rented a few times (at least three times or so)…we only got as far as the Casino Night Zone the first time we rented the game.  Then the second time we got as far as the Hill Top Zone???? But then one night I reached the Mystic Cave Zone …and then I was playing long enough (something like near three hours), and maybe lost all my extra lives.  And back then there were no save points.  O_O

If we were going to beat the game, we were going to have to play the game in one sitting—if it was going to take us three to four hours, we’d have to do it.  By then we became just about pro with handling Sonic’s spin-dashes and spin attacks and the patterns of the badniks.   Not to mention the patterns of Dr. Robotnik’s multiple boss fights throughout the game.

My Sonic Fan-Girl Chronicles: Chapter 2

1992—Sonic the Hedgehog the handheld game

Hanukkah holiday, November 1992.  My sister and I were in second grade.  It was one of the two years that we got presents on Hanukkah as well as Christmas.  It was only one gift, I think.  But it was a really cool gift.  Both my sister and I each got our own Sonic the Hedgehog handheld video game.  The screen was LCD, which I, as a seven-year old, thought it meant “liquid video game.”  XD

At this point, I’ve never played a Sonic the Hedgehog video game—not Sonic the Hedgehog, not Sonic the Hedgehog 2 since I believe it had yet to be released.

Needless to say, we were very pleased to have any kind of Sonic game, not to mention our very own (I guess if we wanted to play it at the same time, it was possible.)  Of course the game was in black and white: the background was a pre-painted color of a sort but the moving characters (Sonic, the badniks, Dr. Robotnik) were all in black digital form with pre-planned moves. I forgot how often I played it, but I’m sure I was entertained, as long as I got past at least the first level.  Did I even finish the game?  I believe I beat it once, but never again.  And oh—the music is the same for all…six…levels.

Something bizarre happened with both of our handheld devices.  After bedtime, we heard noise coming from the bookshelf.  It was one of our handheld Sonic games.  The music from the game was playing on its own.  It played the stage music and then a “tic” sound, then the game-over music.  As if…it was haunted!  Was a ghost playing it?  I was still in my afraid-of-the-dark age so it was scaring me that the handheld game would do that.

I think both of our handheld Sonic games went through the same thing the same week.

It turned out that the battery power was low, and so the game looping the stage music and the game-over music was just a sign that the battery needed to be replaced.  Okay, so that was all it was.  I forgot how long ago we started playing and when the freaky “automatic music” thing happened.

My Sonic Fan-Girl Chronicles: Chapter 1

1991—Sonic the Hedgehog

As fans of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, my sister and I temporarily subscribed (our parents did, anyway) to a magazine that was dedicated to those famous four turtle brothers in a half-shell.  :D  It had to be, I dunno, maybe winter or spring of 1991, that in this magazine there was a page or two about video games coming up, and one of them was the very first Sonic the Hedgehog.   There was at least one little screenshot of the video game.  It was a tiny picture, one that my six-and-a-half year old eyes could see very well, and I saw a blue character with red shoes trying to keep balance on the edge of the cliff and trying not to fall off.  I don’t know what came over me; I could not stop staring at the picture.  Who is this little thing?  I forgot if I saw the title of the game, but even if I did, I never knew what a hedgehog was.  It was the first time I ever came across that word, and little did I know that we were about to have our young gaming lives changed forever…

Our parents had a friend who hosted a pool party summer that same year.   We went along with them because other kids would be there too.  We of course ate first, and then a little while later we were in our swimsuits in the swimming pool. It wasn’t the first time we were in a swimming pool; we had relatives in Canada we visited two years ago who had a pool too.  So we had a lot of fun in the swimming pool, needless to say.  But I gotta say, too…I think after we got out of the pool, we never went back in.  Because after we got out and wrapped ourselves in towels, we stepped into the house and spotted some kids crowded around a TV set.  One of them was playing Sonic the Hedgehog.

All we could do was just stand there, in our swimsuits and towels, and watch the game—watch the blue hedgehog run across the screen and jump and attack the robots with animals in them, and run and run some more, running in loop-de-loops and helixes and grassy moving platforms.   If there is one phrase I can use to describe this experience, it was “love at first sight.”

So this blue thing’s name is Sonic and he’s a hedgehog, huh?  That was neat!  It was—it was better than Super Mario Brothers—and just the previous year we got the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Mario Brothers for our sixth birthday!  Yeah okay, Mario and Luigi run from left to right too, but…Sonic did the same thing and was freakin’ ten times faster!  And the colors were so vivid and the graphics so rich.   The video game music sounded way better to us than the 8-bit music for Nintento.

Our dad was talking to one of the other adults.  I went to them and, with a feeling of guilt (I felt like I was asking the world, though I know Dad didn’t think I was), I asked them, “Can, can I play, the Sunik the Hetchog game?”  The other man repeated “’Sonic Hedgehog?’”  And then I guess from what I remember, Dad explained what it was.  He may have seen that my sister and I were watching.  Maybe that’s how they knew we liked this amazing thing.

I think later after that was when my sister got a chance to play soon after.  One kid soon said, “Watch out.  There’s a bad guy at the end.”   That kid was referring to the main villain Dr. Robotnik, and back then we didn’t know the name of the villain.  I didn’t get a chance to play the game back then, but still, the fact that we were watching or somehow experiencing Sonic the Hedgehog being played live was astonishing.  It was that blue guy in the TMNT magazine that I stared at for some minutes before moving on in the magazine.

So that’s where my history of being a Sonic fan-girl began, and it gets better…

On a Mission to Find Remixes from Sonic the Hedgehog games

It started on June 6^th this year.  One late night I was listening to one of the podcasts—the Sonic Jukebox from the SEGA Jukebox, episode 8—and I heard this really neat track called “Symphonic Ruin,” which was a remake of the music from Sonic 3D (SEGA Saturn) “Rusty Ruin Act 1”  and I fell in love with it immediately.  The artist goes by the name Jivemaster.  I was entranced by how it began with the sound of a thunderstorm and rain.  I rewound the podcast to listen to it again (because I was using my 4^th Generation iPod).

I love the beat, the bass, the melody, just the very sound of it.  It took me to another world.  I could hear it like it was playing on 94.7 the Wave.  I was like, there was a Sonic 3D?   Is that different from Sonic 3D Blast?  The music is different from the SEGA Genesis version and the SEGA Saturn version, I realized.  Man, what a treat it was for my ears to hear this remix.

So I was especially excited when I learned I can listen to a radio station devoted to just music from the Sonic the Hedgehog video games.   Sonic Radio is the one I use the most now; I tried RadioSEGA too (which I got just in time for the Sonic Fan Music Festival on June 23^rd ), but I’ve never played Shenmue or Panzer Dragoon Orta.  There was something from the Legend of Mana that was nice, though.  Eventually I heard the original version of the Sonic 3D track of Rusty Ruin Act 1 (I think the artist was Richard Jacques) and I overjoyed.  Where can I find that, where can I find that?  I found it in another Sonic-music-themed podcast.  Joyyyy!

I tried to find some more podcasts on iTunes that had Sonic remixes so I won’t have to rely on the live radio any time I felt like listening to Sonic music while not on the Internet. 

So I went to the website OverClocked Remix, http://ocremix.org/.  There are remixes of video games that can be downloaded for free.   Here are several of my favorite Sonic music remix tracks:

“Symphonic Ruin”…………………Jivemaster

“Sonicquarium” ……………………..The Cynic Project

“Icecapped”……………………….McVaffe

“Hogtied”……………………………..Brandon Strader, Rexy

“Absolution Comes in Dreams” ……………………… Cyril the Wolf, M-One

“Sonik Eletronik”………………… PrototypeRaptor

“Chemixtrixx” …………………..…PrototypeRaptor

“This World of Absolution”………….………….TrickyWolfy (track found at www.newgrounds.com. She also has a YouTube channel!)

“Walk on Water”……………………..housethegrate

“Blissful Eruption”…………….………LeeBro  (aka Lee Brotherton aka Bentley Jones!!) :3     

 

I realize that not all of the music that I hear in Sonic Radio is either in an OST in iTunes or even in OverClocked Remix.  I was disappointed, but I understand that the artists are all over the place on the Internet.  There are other websites where video game music aficionados share their arrangements and remixes of many video games. I shall find some more.  www.newgrounds.com is one possibility; it is where I found TrickyWolfy’s “Hedgehog’s Lullaby” and “This World of Absolution.” What I really also wanted to do was go to The Sonic Stadium and find some more music from my favorite remix artists.   Unfortunately I can’t listen to them on the TSS Music Album website and I will have to download the whole album (if I can)  and I’m not sure I want to do that.   I am having a hard time trying to find the artist Gario.  I haven’t been disappointed with anything I heard from him so far.  But I don’t know where his remixes can be found.