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.