Sonic the Hedgehog

Normally I'd only post related articles pertaining to my own videos on the website, but for the past few hours I've been reminiscing on the tragedy known as Sonic the Hedgehog. This is going to be quite a long post, but it says what has to be said.

When it comes to Sonic the Hedgehog, I'm sure some of you are asking, "why do you say tragedy?" It's simple: as a kid, the first console I ever got was a Sega Genesis. One of the first games I bought and played was none other than Sonic the Hedgehog 3. I'm not one of the truly old school fans who have been hooked with it since its inception, but I think I've been around long enough to truly appreciate the 2-D masterpiece we all know and love.

Nonetheless, as consoles have evolved into the amazing pieces of equipment they are today, so have our games. And so has Sonic, unfortunately. Over the years since the demise of Sega, we've seen Sonic emerge on the newer consoles, and he's definitely shown up in a whole new environment. In addition, he's been the star of several Saturday morning cartoons, among other shows. (By the way, I watched a few episodes of Sonic X not too long ago. How is that still not on television today?)

Now I know there are some who may disagree with this, but I think many agree when I say this:

Sonic the Hedgehog does NOT work in a three-dimensional environment.

While at the local rental store with a friend shortly over a week ago, we were taking advantage of a two game for $10 special going on for all the 6th generation consoles. We decided upon renting Bully, and then were forced to decide between two games: Sonic Riders and Sonic Heroes. Now, I've played Sonic Riders before, and I must say that I absolutely despise racing games. I can't exactly explain why, although the closest reason I can come to is that when I first got my PS2 six years ago, I got a ton of racing games, and I absolutely hated all of them. Since then, I've never shown much love for the genre.

Nonetheless, I had no clue about Sonic Heroes and I had heard mixed reactions about it, so I made the suggestion, and the decision was made. We popped it in as soon as we got back, and from that moment on we regretted that choice.

From the terrible voice acting to finding out that the game was nothing more than a screwed up racing game, we turned it off after a few minutes. We've played it a few times in the following days just to make sure it was as terrible as it was the first time. It was just unbelievable how much Sonic's good name had just been completely destroyed in the past few years.

Not long after, I managed to come across a copy of Sonic Advance for the Game Boy Advance. I turned it on, and played a bit. Somehow, it managed to restore just a bit of hope that maybe one day, the series might be brought back to its old glory days once again. It was just as I had imagined the game as a kid: your classic 2-D platformer (although maybe a bit remastered to reflect the 3-D way of gaming today) where you simply get the rings and plow through the level and the ensuing Dr. Robotnik bosses. Is there a storyline? Well, I didn't play that much of the game to really get a clue, but it seemed like there was a bit more story than the Genesis ones, but not to the point where it was even bad or annoying. I was baffled - how could the most enjoyable Sonic game in years come from a handheld system that practically just went out a year or two ago? My curiosity got the best of me, and as a result, I managed to sample Sonic Rush for the Nintendo DS.

Again, like the GBA version of Sonic, I was able to re-live the glory days of Sonic as a kid so long ago. Sure, it wasn't perfect, but show me a series that is. I just couldn't believe how much more enjoyment out of the handheld Sonic game I was getting out than the console version my friend was playing right in front of me at the same time.

What I've come to realize is this. For people like myself and others who grew up playing the classic two-dimensional platform version for the Genesis, Sonic is a classic. It's something that can never be changed. And for kids who are growing up in our current world, the old school Sonic is nothing more than a 5-minute internet game. How they can stomach the crap that is put on to today's consoles and gets the Sonic title slapped on it is beyond me. And that is what makes the Sonic name today, in my eyes, a tragedy.

That's it for this edition. Unfortunately, it seems that the handheld versions of Sonic are the closest that we'll ever see to the old-school platformer some of us once knew and loved. However, they serve as a damn good reminiscence.