[MarkoMan]

Sonic 2. I think I was 7, but with thought I could probably come up with an accurate age.

I played through Emerald Hill, then I got stuck on Chemical Plant. The rising water totally baffled my young, gaming mind.

[Cyrus Parker]

Mine was Sonic 2. I remember trying it out at Toys 'r' Us, and I begged my parents for a SEGA Genesis. Me and my brother got the Genesis/Sonic 2 bundle for Christmas, I believe it was.

[TmEE]

Sonic 1 on SMS, damn it blew anything I had played on NES away (I had played roughly 400 games on the NES fore I got a SMS)... sometime later Sonic3, on emulator, then shortly after real hardware

[Graxer]

It was Sonic 1 (Mega Drive) at one of my friend's houses. I was probably about 4 or 5 at the time. I was terrible at it and couldn't even beat Green Hill Zone!

[Cooljerk]

Yep

Sonic the Hedgehog 1, Christmas 1991

All I wanted that christmas was Sonic. I didn't know what a sega genesis was (I had a sega master system) but I knew I wanted Sonic. My parents got me the Sonic + Genesis pack and I was hooked from the moment I booted it up.

I can't explain now how mind boggling the graphics were. For most of the younger users on here, it must seem weird for the genesis to be considered a powerhouse in the graphics department, but back in 1991 it was. I had never seen a Super NES before. The Genesis was incredible. I got Thunderforce III and Columns along with Sonic 1, and together those 3 games made my face fucking melt. Level 2 - Hydra, of thunder force III, for those first few days, was the most amazing thing ever. That screen-filling sin-wave distortion was unbelievable.

I was terrible at Sonic when I first got it. Took me days to beat Greenhill Zone. The day I got it, my sister played it for a bit after me and got to the special stage. It blew my mind. I lost to Robotnik in Greenhill zone many times.

Once I got the groove, I found that Spring Yard Zone was actually my biggest stumbling block. That level was fucking hard. For weeks I couldn't beat it, but when I finally could, I found Labyrinth Zone to be fairly easy. Speaking of which, the transparency effect in Labyrinth Zone was easily the coolest thing I had EVER seen. The green tint to the water made it look so... real. I cannot express how mind blowing that effect was, and it easily cemented Labyrinth Zone as my favorite level in the game. I seriously loved that effect.

I can even remember the day I first beat Sonic 1. Final Zone gave me fits until I realized that if I was patient, I could just hug the right side of the screen and slowly beat the boss. To this day I still use this same tactic, haha.

Man, good fucking memories. I was with Sonic since the very beginning. I actually remember vividly every single sonic game I ever recieved. I could give stories like this for the entire series.

the fondest memory I have of Sonic, though, is when I got Sonic CD. That entire christmas morning was complete, utter magic.

I played the entire sonic series in order, as they were released, but no game, except maybe the original, hit me as hard, or as awesomely, as Sonic CD. I loved the Sega CD from the moment I got it. I'd say it's probably my 2nd favorite sega console as a whole.

[Solaris Paradox]

The first time I beat Sonic Spinball is one of the few memories I actually still have of my childhood. Most of the rest is just a blur.

[Cooljerk]

The first time I beat Sonic Spinball is one of the few memories I actually still have of my childhood. Most of the rest is just a blur.

How sad it would be for me to forget my childhood. I have vivid memories of a lot of mine.

[Impish]

Well it wasn't mine, it came out a few months before I was born, but the first game I ever played was my older brother's copy of Sonic 2 (megadrive). It remains today my favorite Sonic game, as it has the speed and puzzles of Sonic 1, but scope and storyline mirroring Sonic 3 & Knuckles. It has none of the physics flaws of the other two, such as the spike bug and speed cap in sonic 1, or the glitchy glitchness of S3K

[BlackFive]

The first Sonic game I played was sonic 2, but not on a Mega Drive, on a Mega-Tech system at a clubhouse at a campsite in North Devon. I was 12 years old when I played it and hadn't played a Sonic game before then. I thought it was great and since then I've played quite a few of the sonic games, but the one that really got me hooked was Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

[Namo]

I envy you, Cooljerk. Being born in 1993, I wasn't able to experience the Sonic Series as it came out. I was playing Sonic 2 and loving it while everyone else was playing their Playstations.

I too have a lot of vivid memories of my childhood. I'll never forget the first time I saw Robotnik juggling those emeralds because I was young and sucked hard at the special stages.

[Hodgy]

Sonic 2 on the SEGA Mater System in 1995 :D
we couldn't afford the newest consoles back then so we had to make do with older ones. we got a Megadrive the year after, after our rabbit decided to chew through the power cable :D

[Hitlersaurus Christ]

Sonic 1 was my first game. (Either that, Galaga, or Bonk's Adventure actually. My allergist's office had all 3) I was 3 or so at the time and was fascinated. Most of the time I couldn't get past that part in GHZ act 2 with the spike pits, but I remember seeing Robotnik once and thinking it was a duck in a flying saucer. In hindsight I have no fucking clue how I thought that.
I remember playing a demo kiosk of Sonic 2 at a local mall soon after, and not knowing who Tails was, assumed it was a cat and when he was spinning his tails, the helicopter blade effect was him being dizzy. Again, I don't know what the fuck now. And shortly after THAT, I visited a semi-distant relative who had a game gear with Sonic 2 on it, and I was amazed. My parents bought me some VHSs of the two Sonic cartoons at the time and a game gear a bit later and I became utterly obsessed with Sonic. I remember trying to get all the McDonalds' toys when Sonic 3 came out, memorizing random crap from the instruction booklets and strategy guides, getting a genesis with Sonic 2, Sonic 3, and Sonic and Knuckles, getting sick and throwing up profusely when I got Sonic 3D Blast back when it came out (wait never mind that's not a good memory), repeatedly renting a Dreamcast and the SA Trial from Hollywood Video one summer and staying up all night to play it since there was no VMU...
And it wasn't just me; I made so many friends through a mutual obsession with Sonic in elementary school.

Man, those were the days...
What happened?

This post has been edited by Hitlersaurus Christ: 14 September 2010 - 04:46 AM

[tokumaru]

In march of '92 I got a Genesis for my 10th birthday, it came with Sonic 1. I had never heard of sonic before that, and I was instantly hooked. I was such a bad player though, it took me months to get past Green Hill Zone. I guess that's because my previous console was an Atari 2600, which had a very different philosophy on games (I didn't really understand the concept of "bosses", so Robotnik scared the crap out of me). Anyway, I didn't get another cartridge until Sonic 2, which I got on release.

[Metal-Geo]

Sonic CD for the PC here. Mum got back from a short visit from New York, and brought back a beautiful copy of Sonic CD. This must've been somewhere around 1997, when I was like 6 or 7 years old.

It was amazing. The speed, the music, the graphics... Only in 2006 or so did I find out the Japense and European version had a different soundtrack.

Y'know, sometimes I wish I could play several games in my library for the first time again.

[phoenixwright7]

Sonic 2 on a friend of my mom's genesis that we were borrowing for awhile.

You see, I believe The Adventure's of Sonic The Hedgehog had just stopped airing around the time which was one of my favorite cartoons, and I was quite upset. I didn't know at the time that Sonic had actually started out as a videogame so I don't know how my mom figured it out, but she brought over the Genesis and I was instantly hooked. What's interesting is that I was the first person to get past Chemical Plant Act 2, but my mom was the first person to get to Metropolis Zone. I was the first and so far only one between the two of us to beat the game. Her favorite zone to this day is Casino Night zone and she'll sometimes ask to play through Casino Night zone if she catches me playing through Sonic 2.