Everything changed for me that summer in 1991. I was fourteen years old and incredibly awkward like all teenagers are and my friend Mike got a Sega Genesis. I had been playing Nintendo since Christmas of 1985 when my folks got me that NES. It was in my blood at that point. But Mike kept inviting me over to play this “system he got” and told me to “trust me man, it’s different.”
Trust me it was different. Mike turned on the Genesis and that ear splitting “SEGA!” launcher was like someone was going to blow me out of Mike’s basement couch. Plus this music – this intoxicating Green Hill Zone theme I can sing you to this day, nearly thirty years later — and then suddenly this BLUE blur shoots across the screen faster than any gaming speed I thought possible. I actually may have dropped my jaw in awe. Mike noticed because he broke out laughing. “That’s Sonic dude!” he exclaimed. “He’s cooler than Mario, right?”
Um… yeah. He was.
Don’t get me wrong. I liked Mario. Love him even. That little plumber introduced me to video games. Hell, he taught an entire generation what a video game was. But Sonic was cooler. He had style, with a capital S. Sure, if you left Mario sitting around he would just smirk at you impatiently in that Nintendo way. Safe and predictable. Sonic? If you made that dude wait too long he would just tap his foot impatiently at you and give you a look that said, “Come’on already, what’ we waiting for?” Mario took deep knees at the starting line with his thumbs on his hips, happy as could be just waiting for an adventure to start. Sonic was in your face coolness personified.
Artistically, these two couldn’t have been more different. Nintendo designed Mario to be as vanilla as they come. A round, every man sort with silly overalls who moved with this comforting, shuffle gait. Sonic was aggressive angular lines, spikes that looked like they were sliced by a sharp wind, and eyes that looked like he knew he was cool…but wasn’t afraid to kiss you in the forehead like he knew it either. He looked like he could move at THAT speed even when standing still. And then I saw him roll into a ball and fly through one of those loops… I knew I was watching history.
That walk home from Mike’s house I did something I would have laughed at myself for doing just hours earlier. I started thinking about how I was going to save up money for a Genesis. ME! The kid who fought any arguments about video game systems with “NEVER! Nintendo will ALWAYS be better!” By Christmas of ’91 I busted out my new Genesis courtesy of stolen birthday money, allowance funds, and suspiciously oversized holiday gifts from relatives (read: Mom made them buy me gifts). Also on Christmas day? Sonic the Hedgehog.
See, Sega knew what they were doing. And boy howdy did they know how to market to a fourteen year-old me. That whole “Genesis Does What Nintendon’t” slogan may as well have been describing Sonic specifically. Nintendo was this wholesome, family-friendly brand that wanted you to play with them. Sega, though? Sonic was supposed to be your rebellious, anti-Mario persona. Their commercials literally had Sonic racing to rock music while some dreadlocked, astronaut jacket wearing kid yelled at the television like he was living every moment of it. Nintendo just told you what they wanted you to like.
Sonic had attitude. It was the early 90s dude. Bright neon everywhere, Bart Simpson telling people to “Eat my shorts” and everybody was trying to be “Extreme!” Sonic had attitude in spades. Mario would hop and you heard this cute, “plink!” when he picked up a coin. Sonic would fly through the air collecting rings and you heard that satisfying tone of electronic bells that sounded oh so…cooler? Mario yelled things like “Yahoo!” and “Let’s-a-go!” Sonic just…did.
Me and a handful of friends were split pretty evenly on which hedgehog was better and playground wars were had. “Mario has better power-ups!” “Yeah but Sonic is SO much faster!” “Mario’s games go on longer!” “SONIC HAS COOL LEVELS!” I’m pretty sure some of these battles ended with us pushing each other into fences. Kids these days would never understand how important these debates were.
Needless to say, when Sonic 2 came out in 1992, I was FANATIC. I saved my money, bought the game that day it came out, and invited over FIVE other friends to experience every minute with me. We called it a “launch party”, spending hours upon hours taking turns playing and inhaling carb after carb of powdered cheese into my parent’s basement. Sonic 2 let you play as Sonic’s doppelganger, Miles “Tails” Prower, as your backup in case Sonic popped his world ending速度 。 It was a GAME CHANGER because now you could team up with your friend and they could control the little fox boy. Which was awesome… until your friendship was tested by how bad they sucked at being Tails.
The spin dash they introduced with Sonic 2 was groundbreaking. Now you could build up Sonic by bouncing him down hills and then slash him forward like you were launching a projectile. I spent days perfecting the spin dash and calculating how long one needed to spin Sonic in order to make him go the fastest possible distance. My mom would stare at the television every time she walked by our living room and see Sonic spinning in place like he was struggling to…uh…start or something and ask if the game was broken. “NO!” I’d yell! “He’s calculating how far to dash!” She gave me that look parents give you when you’re halfway through puberty. The look of “You may have kicked his ass gangster, but you’ll NEVER beat me.”
Merchandise was big for Sonic right from the start. Between comics, toys, and video games I was there for it. I wore that Sonic shirt to school until the collar stretched out and the print began chipping off. I had a backpack with a Sonic badge on it. Hell, post-Nintendo video game posters could actually be found on my bedroom walls. I was collecting Sonic comics monthly and they even had him doing weird flashbacks that created this entire adult backstory for him. Who cared if it wasn’t in the games? My comic book world was telling me Sonic lived in this massive world with an entire history I simply had to buy into.
Speaking of histories… Sonic’s cartoon was on at the same time as another Sonic cartoon. Like, they were both on within the same year of each other. “Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog” is what we had been watching and it was this cartoony show with…godawful… animation. But “Sonic the Hedgehog” (soond as fans liked to call it) SatAM debuted in January of ’93 and was everything I didn’t know I wanted from a cartoon. Darker, cooler, and much more mature. Sonic was leading a rebellion to stop Doctor Robotnik from taking over the world. Robotnik. Like, we knew he was Robotnik back then. They didn’t say Eggman until much later. That shit was THE plot of a Saturday morning cartoon based on video game about some talking hedgehog and bird. The animation was great, and Jaleel White did AMAZING voicing as Sonic. Sonically speaking.
Let’s not kid ourselves here. The Super Mario Brothers Super Show was for kids half Sonic’s age. They had THESE corny live action skits starring Lou Albano as Mario. Sonic’s cartoons were streets ahead. Literally. Because while Mario inched along, Sonic was busting all sorts of records.
Sonic 3 & Knuckles crushed it when it released in 1994. Everything about Sonic was big. Even his teammate was bigger than your average sidekick. Knuckles was this mysterious new bad ass who could glide, climb ANYTHING, and had some sort of rocky relationship with Sonic. Welcome to the team Dagger, Wolverine of the Sonic universe.
Kids now wouldn’t understand the full magnitude of having Sonic games versus Mario. If you had Sonic games, you were automatically the cooler kid. Unless, of course, you had a Nintendo, and then you were the safe choice. Little did we know how propped up Sega was that whole fight. They wanted you to think you were cool because you didn’t want to go with the status quo Nintendo. It was a brilliant marketing strategy to get kids to pick sides and it worked on me like a charm. I felt so much cooler belonging to Team Sonic! OH WAIT. I got a Super Nintendo later that year. Don’t tell the others…
My room was a freaking Sonic shrine at this point. In addition to shirts and posters, I had Sonic bedding that I swore was “totally acceptable” for a teenager to have, bought the entire collection of Sonic McDonald’s toys, and even own a pair of Sonic slippers I wore down to the point I literally unraveled them. The best purchase? This Sonic watch that played the Green Hill Zone theme when you pressed a button. I wore it everywhere until Mrs. Henderson confiscated it after I “accidentally” pressed it during a middle school science test. I explained to her that I was merely trying to think of a solution to a complex problem, so I needed to hear the Zone again.
The Genesis hardware was built for Sonic. The speed and amount of gameplay you could push through on one battery was unmatched. Plus, the speed Sonic could move was attributed by how fast the Genesis could move sprites around the screen. Every time I played Sonic, it felt like I was literally taking the console to its limits in the best way possible. Sonic ran on momentum, something no Mario game had until way later. How Sonic built up speed rolling down hills, how you could use that speed to BOUNCE OFF WALLS to make him go higher, how timing your jump just right could send Sonic careening through entire stretches of a level. It felt alive. Responsive. Mario was clinical by comparison.
Speaking of levels, Sonic were designed DIFFERENTLY than your typical Mario stage. Mario stages were smart, twisted journeys typically from left to right, oftentimes throwing more than one path your way to reach the flagpole. Sonic levels were vertical and horizontal megalopolises. Not only did you race through these BIG-ass stages, but you were CONSTANTLY bombarded with multiple paths to take. Wanna cheque out that high ramp? Sure! How about we dive down into these quarters for some rings? Sonic levels had it all. To this day, Chemical Plant Zone from Sonic 2 is probably my favorite video game stage of all-time. You had your speed sections, platforming you actually had to THINK to survive, and that insane rushing water with the countdown smashing into your ears. Still gives me chills thinking about.
Put any other 90s mascot character up against Sonic and you can really appreciate what made Sonic great. Sure, Crash may have arrived looking crazier than Sonic with his egomania galore attitude, but he honestly didn’t have the same swagger that Sonic had. Too silly. Too obvious in his attempts to be wacky. Bonk was cool and all but he wasn’t given enough personality to stick around (also Bonk? What kind of mascot name is Bonk?). Even god awful Bubsy with his corny, dumb one liners felt more corporately approved than Sonic.
And we thought everything out when it came to betting on who would win in a race, Sonic or Mario. “Mario can use a shell power up to be just as fast as Sonic!” “Yeah but those run out, while Sonic is ALWAYS fast!” “What if they’re underwater? Mario can swim faster than Sonic!” Children who spent their days thinking about recess suddenly had degrees in physics because of two cartoon animals.
Sonic became bigger than just a video game by the mid-90s. You didn’t NEED a Sega Genesis to know who Sonic was. He was on lunchboxes, stickers, cartoons featured on TV almost daily, you name it. Mario got there first sure, but Sonic managed to usurped his older brothers fame in just a fraction of the time it took Mario. Sonic was something entertainment companies were “trying” to make in committees. Sonic was truly something special.
It’s crazy looking back on how Sonic has aged over the years. Mario transitioned into 3D games eventually becoming SUPER MARIO 64 which was a wonderful successor to every game Mario had graced us with before it. Sonic’s first true venture into the 3D world was FAR more complicated with Sonic Adventure. The very same speed that made him so great in 2D now created problems with camera movement and overall control that the franchise still hasn’t truly nailed. Hell, some recent Sonic games RAIL against everything that makes Sonic great. But even when Sonic games have stunk in the past twenty years, they still always kept that edge and Sonic-ness about them.
To this day, if I hear that first chord of Green Hill Zone, I’m taken back to that moment I knew gaming would never be the same. I even have a small shelf dedicated to Sonic characters in my office. Including this ridiculous but cute 30th anniversary Sonic figure I probably paid too much money for. My nephew was over the other day and saw them, asking me why I had “toy*s*” on display. Which then led me into (probably way too) animated of an explanation about how important Sonic was and why. Sonics. Kids these days will never know.
Samuel’s been gaming since the Atari 2600 and still thinks 16-bit was the golden age. Between accounting gigs and parenting teens, he keeps the CRTs humming in his Minneapolis basement, writing about cartridge quirks, console wars, and why pixel art never stopped being beautiful.
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