SONIC’S 23rd ON THE 23rd OF JUNE!!!!

Wow, so it’s Sonic’s 23^rd on the 23^rd of June!  How does that happen?!  It’s happening.  As I’m writing this I am listening to Sonic Radio on iTunes.  As long as I am home on the 23^rd of June, each time I will celebrate part of the day by listening to Sonic Radio on iTunes to some favorite remixes, favorite OST tracks, and new ones I’ve never heard before that make the experience such a treat.  I get so many smiles from this pastime.

I did this last year too.  Last year it was an event called Project 24, where several SEGA online radio stations were scheduled to host a radio show each hour playing specifically remixes of music from Sonic video games.  I was able to listen to a lot of Sonic music remixes that I’ve never heard before.  It was an amazing experience, so amazing that I tried to find some Sonic-related podcasts that contained a lot of those remixes.  I was on a crazy search for really cool Sonic remixes.

I am still collecting remixes. Mostly from iTunes podcasts, OC Remix and the Sonic Stadium Music Depository of remix albums.

Lately I’ve been distracted with another fandom: Transformers.  I have been neglecting my Sonic games for the last few months.  But seeing as it is Sonic’s 23^rd, I am brought back to appreciating my favorite childhood video game character again.  Sonic the Hedgehog has been a big part of my childhood and I don’t want him to stop being a part of my life.

Last year I was playing Sonic Rivals 2 at least two times a week.  I always played as either the three hedgehogs Sonic, Shadow and Silver, or Espio the Chameleon.  It is a nice escape.  But I haven’t touched my PSP for quite a few months now.

Ah…!   Gamma E102's theme song is playing now!!! Yay!!!

Sorry, I had to say that.  I love that robot.

I’ve tried to get back to Sonic Unleashed.  I didn’t earn any new medals for daytime or nighttime.  I played “Dragon Road—Day” a few times and had fun, but didn’t improve score by too much.  The music track for this Day Stage always makes me smile through my fails.  Hah hah. 

I’m listening to Sonic Radio now, and then I’ve got other things to do, then later in the day I’ll log in and listen to it again.  And I may visit some of the Sonic websites to see what other people say about Sonic’s 23^rd.

Oh, "Symphonic Ruin" is playing now!!  This is the remix that made me want to collect more Sonic remixes!! (see post here to read more...)

Well Sonic, it’s your 23^rd birthday/anniversary today, so Happy Birthday, I love you, and keep on runnin’!

After thought: a link to the post about my first true encounter with the Sonic the Hedgehog video game.

1991—Sonic the Hedgehog
http://cyborghaven.blogspot.com/2013/09/my-sonic-fan-girl-chronicles-chapter-1.html

My Anniversary of Beating the Game: Sonic Adventure 2

I meant to post this on March 22, but life got in the way.  So here it is,...the beginning of a thorough reminisce of my favorite Sonic game of all time, Sonic Adventure 2.

May 22, 2002.  So this was…12 years ago!  Man, I feel so old.  I was in 11^th grade.  It was on a Friday night, and for dinner I had buffalo chicken wings and the “Mr. X” episode of The Simpsons was on.  What time did I start?  My spring break was starting the next Monday and I was looking forward to basking in the joy that is beating the game, but I ended up being depressed not only because I beat this game.  I was depressed because Shadow’s story ended in Sonic Adventure 2.

Or so we thought!


I still think about it every once in a while.  It was probably one of the most triumphant—and bittersweet—finishing of a Sonic game I’ve ever experienced. 


The reason why I am posting this little bit of my memory about the night I finished the game, is because I am going to refer to my diary and document my writings about what I thought or liked about Sonic Adventure 2.  Of course, Shadow the Hedgehog is the #1 reason why I needed the SEGA Dreamcast in the first place—the reason why we got one at all, thanks to Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog #98..  When the TV ad for SA2 aired, we didn’t have a Dreamcast.  It was then we realized we needed to upgrade from SEGA Genesis.
 
“Throw It All Away” is still my favorite theme song for Shadow.  It was different from the usual rock music that would be associated with Sonic. The first part is not sung, it is said, and it made me nervous…but like a good nervous?  I don’t know what to call the genre/style of Shadow’s theme here… a cross between electronic and eclectic?  Techno mix?  I dunno.  But it certainly was a different mood you don’t get with theme songs of other characters. 


I am also watching the cut-scenes again from the game to have a direct refresh of memory, since I haven’t touched this game for um…about 10 years. I can watch them knowing now that Shadow is okay (at least maybe 75% of Sonic fans think so) but I will also be reminded of how shocked or surprised I was when I witnessed what was in my opinion the biggest moment for me in SA2: Sonic and Shadow joining forces and turning Super together!

[Sigh]…so the last two weeks of March always feel different because Sonic Adventure 2 was the video game that changed me the most as a Sonic fan-girl.  It is significant to me in the fact that this was around the time I finished the game.  And I don't think I shared a lot of my feelings or experience about this game because I wasn't presently playing it.  Plus there were other games I was playing.   But I have to share them soon, because SA2 is an important part of my gaming history, my gaming experience.


Should I make this part of the Sonic Fan-Girl Chronicles?  I probably can.  I meant to do it as part of the series anyway, but it's just been delayed for a long while.  It's finally coming.  Too bad I couldn't post it toward the end of March.   It will have to be in April, then.  I have to still document and collect some more memories/journal entries about my time playing Sonic Adventure 2.


Come back again soon!  I'll have some treats to share.  ^__^

My Sonic Fan-Girl Chronicles, Chapter 9—2001, Sonic Adventure

A long time coming but here it is, the next main chapter to my chronicles as a fan of Sonic the Hedgehog (and Shadow the Hedgehog, as you shall soon see...)

Oh my goodness, oh my goodness Sonic Adventure.   I was blown away by the beginning intro movie.   And jeez the rock music! There’s singing in it!  Singing!!  The graphics were so amazing and fluid and Sonic was…Sonic was uh…different.  Very different.  I mean I knew for a couple of years, but…dayum, Sonic’ s longer quills, green eyes and…yeah, I’ll stop right there before it gets weird.  I was fifteen years old, and then sixteen years old when I got the SEGA Dreamcast.  So there.

This excerpt is from July 4, 2001.  Hah, an Independence Day!  I didn’t remember!

★4^th O’ July—Yeah, I played SA alright.  I began a little later than I [wanted to] cuz there was something extra needed to plug in the Dreamcast machine with (or into the TV).  I wanted to help Dad with it cuz I was definitely interested.  Oh, while Dad went to Best Buy to get the extra cable, I read the instruction manual for SA and I found out some cool stuff about the game—‘bout Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy Rose, Gamma E-102, and Big the Cat.  I realized that this video game was more than just collecting 7 Chaos Emeralds, freeing animals and busting up RBNK.  In fact I think it was TOO MUCH!  I know I should be able to handle all of that, but boy is this game something or what?  There is actual dialogue in the game… unlike the games for the SEGA Genesis.  Okay, I’ll write more tomorrow…★

According to what I wrote the next few days after I started playing the game, I seemed to have been in love with Sonic.  At my age of 16, was that weird?  And with Shadow too.  I got a chance to play Sonic Adventure pretty much almost every day.  It helped me wait for the advent of Sonic Adventure 2.  This was before I had my own computer, let alone experience the Internet (except for a few weeks in 7^th grade computer class elective).  So I couldn’t learn too much about Shadow at the time.  But, as for Sonic Adventure, I needless to say started with Sonic’s story in the game, and then little by little tried out the other characters like Tails and Knuckles.  Knuckles’ story was especially interesting because of the past with the other echidnas.   There were other echidna characters appearing in a Sonic game, it was bizarre.  Supposedly Knux was the last of ‘em.  The best of them.  Tougher than lava!....See what I did there?  His theme song was a rap?  A rap?  Just cuz he has dreadlocks.   My sister was a big fan of Knuckles; she was happy to play through his story.  She enjoyed making m him run around in the Mystic Ruins.

And then…and then the robot Gamma E-102.   I still need to write about him for my other blog Cybernetic Dreams.   His story wasn’t very long, but it was a nice story; he worked for Dr. Eggman and then eventually turned good and helped out Amy Rose.  But…but his story is sad.  Gamma E-102 is one of the robot characters that led me to my fascination with robots.  But that is another story, maybe to be shared on Cybernetic Dreams.

Gosh, there are so many things to say about both Sonic Adventures, but I don’t want each game post to be a whole book!  So I‘ll mention some things, a few of which might have its own post: The NiGHTS Pinball game OMG... And of course…the new Super Sonic!  Yikes!   :O

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.

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.

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…

Four-Year Anniversary of Cyborg Haven: Blog of a Gamer Girl

Four years ago on September 3^rd, I launched Cyborg Haven: Blog of a Gamer Girl.  I had wanted to start this blog earlier than 2009, but while I was attending CSUN, I didn’t have the time to commit to it, let alone know what I wanted to write about or how to design it.  It would be my very first blog, so I didn’t know the routine of creating a blog.

I first heard of a “blog”—web log—back in 2006, when one of my instructors in my previous college suggested Blogger to students as a method of writing journals for the reading we do for the class.  It was an interesting idea: an online journal for reading assignments.  I was new to doing that sort of thing, and I wasn’t comfortable with writing for the public quite yet—not the World Wide Web, at least.  I think I just used a folder with fasteners to hold lose paper together and used that as a notebook for my reading journal.

Then in 2008 I was re-introduced to Blogger in a Popular Culture course.  There was even a book all about blogging as a recommended text for the course.  It is called The Rough Guide to Blogging by Jonathan Yang.  It wasn’t required reading.  But I knew that eventually I wanted to write a blog of my own (because for the class we were going to have group blogs not individual ones).  I at least read what I needed for the blog me and my group would write and maintain, but after graduation in 2009, I returned to the blog book and read up on Blogger, tags, HTML, and design tips on things such as font, template and background.   I also had to think about what topic I wanted for my blog:  what topic or aspect about my life would I be able to have something to write about more often than most?  I didn’t want to write about my everyday life:  I wanted a topic I thought would be fun to update progress or reactions to.

I decided on Blogger as my host because I was introduced to it twice before and it was one of the simpler ones, plus I already had a Google account when I made my Gmail, so I just sign in with my Gmail. 

I forgot how exactly I came to the decision, but I decided that videogames would be the topic of my blog.  Video games played by me, a girl.  But what should I title it?  Well, before I realized how much of a robot enthusiast I was, I came up with “Cyborg Haven”, which made me think of a human connected to a computer or a television set.  This online journal would be a place where one who is a causal gamer girl (who feels out of place with other girls who don’t play video games) can go to rant or reminisce or gush or fan-girl about topics related to videogames, such as favorite characters or new videogames I’m looking forward to trying out or owning.  I ultimately had to add the subtitle “Blog of a Gamer Girl” because I didn’t want to confuse other geeks about what kind of blog it is.  So the full title on the top of the blog became “Cyborg Haven: Blog of a Gamer Girl,” which may be longer than it should be, but I’m happy with it.

Keeping the blog was also a way to keep my typing skills.  In addition, I had a way of keeping a log of what video game I played and when, and what I did, and how I felt at the time.  I love how I can search for the video game subtopics by tags that I give them, such as Nostalgia and Reminisce, Progress, Mega Man X, or Sonic the Hedgehog.

Then the design questions came up.  I wanted to put a picture of my own creation, not someone else’s picture.  I spent about an hour a day for a few days on Microsoft Paint 2002 to draw a cyborg girl specifically for this blog.  NOTE:  For the 5-year anniversary of Cyborg Haven, I may place an entirely different drawing of a cyborg girl for the top of the page.  Maybe then my drawing skills will have improved.
 

The reason why the background color is a dark navy blue and the text light gray is because I figure that if anyone is reading this late at night, it should be easier on the eyes, rather than having dark text against a bright white background.  It could be dark green…or dark red…but the blue is a bit more calming than the other colors.  Even purple might not be bad if I give it the right hue.

As for how often I will be posting on Cyborg Haven: I realize that some of my posts have been few but big.  I think from this point on, I might try something and post more often but keep the posts down to two big paragraphs or three shorter paragraphs.  If I want to update what missions, stages or tasks I’ve accomplished in a video game, I can list them and talk briefly about one or two of them in detail.  Eventually when I start working, hopefully around mid-autumn, it may be harder to get a chance to play a good video game session.  I don’t want to stop writing for Cyborg Haven.  My interest in video games should survive even when my lifestyle gets busier.

Here’s to another year of blogging about my favorite childhood pastime: playing video games!  And yes, it’s not just a “childhood” pastime.  You’re never too old to try new things.

This is Your Year, Sonic!

I can’t believe it’s been 20 years since Sonic the Hedgehog made his debut in the United States.

And now he is going to get his own new (updated) parade balloon for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade!!     :3  

Twenty years. That means I was at least six years old when I found out he existed, and it changed my world.  The Nintendo games and Super Mario Brothers weren’t enough anymore.  I had to play the video game with the cool blue hedgehog that runs fast and bounces off robots.  SEGA Genesis provided video games—especially the Sonic the Hedgehog ones—that were more colorful and ran faster than Mario ever could.  My Sega Genesis lasted longer than the NES.  I guess what I meant to say was that I was playing on the SEGA Genesis longer than I’ve played on the NES. I spent more time playing Sonic 2, Sonic 3, Sonic and Knuckles, Sonic 3 and Knuckles, and Sonic 3D Blast than any other video game I would play on the NES or others on the SEGA Genesis.

Now that Sonic Generations is released, my appreciation for this video game character is renewed.  I don’t know when I’ll get it and play it.  I don’t even have Sonic Colors (the latest one I DO have is Sonic Unleashed, with is about 3 years old? now).  I’m sure Sonic Colors is a good game.  There seems to be a lot of hype about Sonic Generations, and so far it is looking good.  I am trying to stay away from trailers or websites that are too revealing about the game.  I didn’t know there was going to be a Nintendo 3DS version of SG, although it doesn’t apply to me because I know I won’t need a Nintendo 3DS. The PSP 3000 is already my handheld console of choice.

I suppose that eventually I will have to have a go with Sonic Generations. It is something I feel I shouldn’t miss out on. I am still busy with the Dissidia FFs, and really should get back to Sonic Unleashed, since it is the most HD Sonic game I have. I haven’t even tried this game on the HD TV set yet (it’s been nearly two years since I touched that vide game).  I’ll bet it’s going to look so good.

I still read the Sonic the Hedgehog comic books from Archie Comics.  I am about seven issues behind, though--alot of other things have been getting in the way--but I am looking forward to reading them when they celebrate Sonic's 20th.

So, Sonic…this year is for you. <3  Your 20th anniversary, new video game, ongoing comic books,  new parade balloon...and most important of all, old fans and new fans of the most way past cool blue hedgehog in the video game universe.

An old Shadow the Hedgehog sketch

I realize that Shadow is missing his left arm.  Needless to say this drawing is incomplete, but I still want to share it.  I used a reference, obviously...




Drawing by Amethyst Anne, November 24 and December 18, 2001
Shadow the Hedgehog belongs to SEGA.



     2001 was the year that I got the SEGA Dreamcast for the reason that I wanted to play Sonic Adventure 2.  The Sonic the Hedgehog Archie comic book series did a brief thing on SA2 in issue #98.  It is one of my very favorite issues of the comic book.   I ended up getting the Dreamcast with a Sonic Adventure Bundle (SA, Sonic Shuffle, and a demo of SA2).   By December 2001 I was about half done with finishing the game, and even though Shadow was a villian, he was growing on me, probably because he was a hedgehog like Sonic.  So I wanted to draw him.

I drew this picture during winter break from high school.  I'd feel bad drawing him when I'd have homework to do, so winter break was a nice time to do it.  :3  It took a few days; I left it and got back to it again.

Yay Shadow!!!   ^,^ 

An Anniversary (if anyone rembembers...?)

Today is the 16th anniversary of the release of the video game Sonic and Knuckles for the SEGA Genesis.

I remember this date because it was on an ad in a video game magazine my dad used to buy for me when I was in third grade.  Or fourth grade.  One of those.  The Sonic and Knuckles logo was on this black page and it said the release date on it: 10-18-1994.

I'll include a link to a Wikipedia page on the game.  It says that the North American release date was October 17th, but I REMEMBER in the magazine ad it said 10-18.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_&_Knuckles

The story of how I got into Kingdom Hearts and ultimately, Square Enix PART 1

It was the summer of 2002, in September. I had finished playing Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, and I was ready to buy a new PlayStation 2 game. I had no idea what I wanted. I thought about the game Sky Gunner, which was cute and a fly-shooter genre, but I knew there were other choices.

I remember a trailer for a video game that I watched from a demo DVD from the now defunct Official PlayStation Magazine. This was a trailer for Kingdom Hearts. The music was cinematic and there were Disney characters like Donald Duck and Goofy. It seemed that the main character was this spiky-haired boy with blue eyes. My first thoughts were “What? Who’d wanna play that game? A boy enters the world of Disney and meets Tarzan and Ariel and everyone else? What the f***? Tsh, who cares.”

Then on September 20 (and it was a Friday, I remember that detail) sitting in my keyboarding class in high school, I was looking forward to buying a new video game later that afternoon. It was a really good day, and knowing I’d buy a new game made it even better. Later that day at home, I was watching Pokémon (when I still watched it) and during a commercial break, a TV ad for Kingdom Hearts began. It started with a piano key note in “A” with the words SQUARE ENIX on the screen. Then as the visuals for the game were showing, the chorus for “Simple and Clean” played in the background. “Oh, I love that song. That sounds nice! What game is it for…Kingdom Hearts? Ya know, I just might buy that game!” And ultimately I did…because I liked the song.

I got the strategy guide for it too. It was the very first video game strategy guide that I bought (and there would be more to come).

Later, I’ll write about how my love for Kingdom Hearts led me to my love for Final Fantasy VII and generally Square Enix. I’ll give you guys a hint: it’s spelled C-L-O-U-D.   ^,^