[nineko]

Sonic 1 on the Game Gear, I got it as a birthday present (along with Columns and Castle of Illusions) for my 8th birthday, in April 1992.
I already loved it a lot, but I could never get past the maze in Scrap Brain Zone 2.

If you are into nostalgia, here you are some other recommended threads:
Did you grow up with PAL or NTSC Sonic?
Who here started with Sonic 1, honestly.
What was your first Video Game Console?
What was your FIRST impression of Sonic?
Why are you here..?

[JaxTH]

Sonic 2 when I was 2 years old.

[Sonic Warrior TJ]

My father owned a pharmacy in the early 90s and bought candy and soft drinks in bulk at Sams club, which was where I first got my hands on Sonic 1. I fucking loved it, and ran to find game demos any time we went to a store with an electronics section (I remember being pissed at the one at Service Merchandise, as the down button didn't work so I couldn't make Sonic roll). From that point, I was obsessed, mostly because I didn't own a Genesis until like '97 (I either played at friends' houses or Dad would rent one for me in exchange for good grades).

Actually, the apartment complex I'm in now is across the street from said Sams club, and I can see it from my bedroom window. Weird.

[Captain L]

The first Sonic game I ever played was Sonic Heroes at Sam's Club. I remember that I liked to play as the "red guy", and was on a level that looks like Green Hill. But the first Sonic game I played for any extended period of time was Sonic Blast using online emulators. I could make it to Blue Marine Act 2 as either Sonic or Knuckles, always getting stuck on some part where I couldn't jump high enough. So today I will defend the game purely on nostalgic memories.

[0r4ng3]

I received the four classic MegaDrive carts as a desperate attempt to placade my Tetris addiction, which was running wild for several years already and didn't seem to stop anytime soon. Since I was offered the four classics, I started with 1, because I was a neat like that. I found it cute and enjoyable, but it wasn't tetris and I liked 2 less. Then I played S3&K. Fuck Tetris. Haven't played it seriously since then. Pretty sure it was Hidrocity Zone that did the trick.

[Mykonos]

Damn, practically everyone in this topic except for Captain L has been introduced with one of the pre-3D titles.

My first game was Sonic Adventure 1 on the SEGA Dreamcast. I still remember always having to play through Chaos 0, Station Square, Emerald Coast, and the Egg Hornet since we lacked a memory card for a few weeks. Such a happy day it was when we finally got one, haha.

[ExtendedAffinity]

I know I played Sonic 1 around the time it came out. I don't remember my thoughts of it though. It wasn't my first game, and I must not have been amazed or else I would have remembered. I recall getting Sonic 2 Christmas of 92. I do remember my impression of that game was "this is way better than the last one." I was amazed and I played it a fair bit. I never could get past Metropolis Zone. In fact, I never did get past it until relatively recently, because once Sonic 3 came out...

I was like "this is the best thing ever" and I played Sonic 3 (and the later Sonic and Knuckles) all the time. I loved Sonic 3 and Knuckles so much I pretty much never went back to play Sonic 2 again, past testing the lock-on feature. I didn't have too much fun with that because I don't like playing as Knuckles. I remember just getting to Chemical Plant Zone and being like "I'm done with this guy" and going back to Sonic 3 and Knuckles. I had heard the lock-on feature didn't work with Sonic 1 so I didn't even try that until months later, I guess just to check.

Through all this I was the only Genesis kid I knew. Everybody else was into Nintendo, and I recall being fiercely defensive of Sega and Sonic because of it. Also I hated Nintendo. (I never got a Nintendo console until the N64, and my father bought that for me without my permission. And I resented having it because it was Nintendo. That is, until I actually played the only game I had for it (Ocarina of Time). I begrudgedly loved it.)

I later fell into a hole and never played a Sonic game that came out between Sonic and Knuckles and Sonic Adventure. I remember loving Sonic Adventure also, and thinking it was all around amazing. The graphics, the music, the everything was just incredible. Except Big. I hated playing as him, so I didn't.

I remember Sonic Adventure 2 also, and I remember thinking almost immediately how it wasn't as good as the first one, and being annoyed at the forced change in characters. For a time there I was actually very disappointed, and felt that I had wasted my money on it. I started to warm up to it eventually though.

After that I fell into another hole and only recently played Sonic Heroes, which was...okay. I have a copy of Sonic Riders and Shadow the Hedgehog but I haven't tried them yet.

For the record, my first video game was Shadow of the Beast. The original Amiga version not any of the crappy ports.

[TheKazeblade]

I got into Sonic somewhat late; I was born in '91 and didn't get into Sonic until I was about 8 or so. The first Sonic game I remember playing is Sonic Adventure Demo on the Dreamcast set-ups they used to have at Hollywood Video. I loved playing those and Chaos 0 was such a fantastic boss to me at the time. I just loved how cool it all was.

My best memories, though, were when my parents got me the Sonic 3/ Sonic and Knuckles/ S3&K combo for PC along with Sonic CD. Those games FORGED my childhood. I have more memories sitting in front of my old Windows '98 Compaq more vividly than most anything else in my childhood. The only bane of it was Sonic CD would never get past Collision Chaos; once I hit it, the game would freeze every second to the point it became unplayable later came Sonic 2 with the Sega Smash Pack and the rest is history.

[Thousand Pancake]

First Sonic game I ever played was S1 for the Game Gear, on an emulator for Pocket PC at someone's workplace. I remember getting the speed shoes powerup and Sonic running right off the screen for the rest of level 1. It was probably the most exhilarating thing I ever felt in a video game until I first played the original NiGHTS.

This post has been edited by Thousand Pancake: 14 September 2010 - 07:09 PM

[Billy]

Sadly, I don't actually remember my first Sonic game. =( I've been playing Sonic for as long as I can remember... My parents got a Genesis with Sonic 1 when I was really little, or maybe even before I was born (I was born in 1992). I always remember enjoying Sonic 2 more than 1 though. We never did get Sonic 3 though; I didn't get to play Sonic 3 until I was 8 or so, a year after my parents split.

[13th Nightmare]

It would have been Sonic the Hedgehog on the Master System 2 I think it was. I couldn't tell you what age I was as I honestly can't remember. It was the 1st time I had even heard of Sonic so I was a little curious about it. I think it was maybe even the 1st game I ever completed. I remember the Chaos Emerald in Labyrinth Zone always gave me trouble, just of because of where it was.

[BlazeHedgehog]

I have vague memories of playing Sonic 1 on an in-store kiosk and not really paying much attention to it. It was only for a couple of minutes, anyway.

My first real memory was New Years Eve, 1991. My Mom had me pretty late in her life - my brother is 14 years older than I am, for instance, so by the time I was 6 or 7 in 1991, he was already an adult.

Some sort of "adult" movie was on TV that night; Citizen Kane, some horror movie about killer electronics and some cousins around my brother's age were over to sit down and watch it with my Mom and brother. The point is, it was the kind of movie that a 7 year old should not watch, so I was essentially told to go play with my toys in my room until it was over, but that didn't last long.

My brother, for Christmas that year, had gotten a piece of "stereo equipment" called a Sega Genesis. Or at least, I thought it was stereo equipment - it was electronic, with all kinds of weird buttons and headphone jacks and a volume slider. My brother's room was an off-limits zone for me, so once he took it in there, it essentially vanished and I never thought about it ever again.

As a family we had bought our first NES in 1989 or so, with Super Mario Bros. I knew what a videogame was and I enjoyed it immensely. So here we are, New Years Eve 1991, I'm a kid and clearly bored but they don't want me interrupting their movie or whatever. So I'm taken in to the forbidden zone of my brother's room, sat down infront of the Sega Genesis, and they turn on Sonic the Hedgehog.

And I'm blown away. Though I can't beat Marble Zone, the game captivates me. It's all I can talk about for hours after I stop playing.

And I never play it again. It was locked away in my brother's room, and that doesn't matter because a few weeks later, he moves out, and takes the Genesis with him. But I wanted more. This may actually be what developed my intense interest in Sonic the Hedgehog - wanting to play the game more and being constantly denied. As a result, I dedicated a pretty large portion of my childhood to finding ways to play Sonic. A few minutes here and there on store kiosks or at a relative's house. I never felt like I had played enough to be satisfied, so I continued looking for a way to play more.

The Christmas after my brother moved out, my Mom got me a new game console. She got me a SNES. I tried not to look disappointed, but I couldn't help it. "I thought you liked Mario?" she told questioned. "I do," I said, "But I really want to play more Sonic."

By now Sonic the Hedgehog 2 hit store shelves, and the "Mascots with Attitude" fad was beginning to heat up, so I spent two years hunting out SNES games that filled the Sonic niche. Games like Bubsy, and Rocky Rodent. After a Gamepro article described the Twinbee SNES platformer as "like Sonic the Hedgehog," I pined for a US release that never happened.

By the time I was memorizing a Sonic the Hedgehog 3 strategy guide despite not owning the game, my Mother obliged and bought me my own Sega Genesis for my Birthday with both Sonic 2 and Sonic 3. The rest is history!

[Endri]

1991, Sonic the Hedgehog in the Sega Master System. How could I forget? It came with the Master System!

I guess I told the story of the circunstances at least three times in these boards, so I can't be bothered to write everything down once again, and I don't remember the threads to copy and paste from them either.

Then we (me and my older brother) rent Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (SMS) in the local blockbuster at the year of 1992, some weeks after the brazilians Children's Day (October 12th), and we used to rent it regularly every weekend, until I was gifted with the 16-bit version of the game along with my Sega Mega Drive in the night of my birthday (December 16th) in 1992. Good times, good times. I remember how we thought we were done for in the ending of Underground Zone's Act 3, how we didn't know how the hang-glidder worked, and when I first reached Aqua Lake Zone by myself...

I then got Sonic 1 16-bit at some point after I had my Mega Drive, but I don't remember exactly when. So yeah, for all extents, I started with Sonic 1 regardless.

[Trunks]

Sonic 2 was the first one I owned (the first game I ever personally owned), and Sonic 1 was the first game I ever saw, at my brother's friend Ari Nakisa's house.

[Spatula]

I never had a console growing up.

Played Sonic 2 on a friend's console, and that was my introduction. Maybe I was 7-8 at the time. Couldn't get past the Aquatic Ruins—kept drowning. Got Sonic 3&Knuckles when it came out for the PC, and played the everliving shit out of it, followed by 3D Blast when that came out.

I got around to playing the other games through emulators, relatively recently.