I went to a friends place who usually plays Nintendo and they had a Sega Genesis and they showed me Sonic the Hedgehog 1. I thought it looked cool and the Chaos Emeralds I thought were All State logos as a little kid (it looked like two hands to me). The thing that really stood out to me was the music and I went home to my mom and started humming the Spring Yard (which I thought was the first level because that is what I was shown first) theme and the boss theme to my mom. I think she wasn't impressed with my performance but I thought it was great. Much later on my parents got me a Genesis instead of a Super Nintendo and I played Sonic 1 so often. It was either Sonic 1 or 2. The friend above didn't let me play at their house, so it could have been Sonic 2 at a kiosk or antoher friend's place. One way or another I got the mail-in copy of 2 and I liked that one a lot too, but I always liked the style of 1 better. I think I read in a Disney Adventures magazine that there was going to be a TV show for Sonic and that was exciting. Then there were two. I always liked SatAM better even as a kid. Of course, Sonic CD and the OVA are both still my favorites. tbh I don't think I reminisce that much. There are other games to talk about here and I like talking about what I like and dislike from the newer games. Plus new old stuff still gets discovered. My OVA-loving butt got the treat of a lifetime this past year with HD versions and full OST release. Playing Sonic CD at a friend's house and then seeing that fully animated intro with those badass riffs. Blew me away in a memorable way. For Sonic, I hope that Sonic figures out who he is and finds great success. I hope Sega gets the right people making the right game to remind people that Sonic is more than just a mascott. I went to an arcade and saw Sonic plushies? Does that count? Also noticed Game Hut put up a new vid that I need to watch.
1. What is your earliest memory of seeing Sonic anywhere? Probably in a Dixons shop in town, remember just being glued to the demos whilst whoever had dragged me there was looking at clocks, or something. 2. What was the first Sonic related media actually you played/read/watched? Sonic 1 3. Why do you still spend time here, reminiscing over the series today? It's pretty much the only (Sonic) fansite I still visit! Been around since I used to lurk (mostly) in the old SSRG Area 51 eons ago, and it's always been fascinating to see folk more tech-minded than myself find cool stuff hidden away in the games. Back then we only had the Simon Wai and Crackers ROMs too so to see more and more discoveries pop up over the years has been brilliant to watch. Plus my focus has always been on the games themselves, pretty much most of the fansites back then were heavy on the SatAM/Archie side of things and I didn't give two flying shites about that. To be honest I've always felt this is the "Proper" place, away from all the crap you get on other Sonic forums. 4. What's your favorite memory of the franchise over the past 30 years? Honestly......probably getting Sonic 3. Felt like bloody ages had passed since Sonic 2 was released (it hadn't really) so my excitement at the time was off the charts. Either that or playing Mania for the first time. 5. What are your honest hopes for the next 10 years? Mania 2 or nothing. 6. How will you celebrate the franchise today? I had planned on a playthrough of Sonic 1 but I did that at the weekend, so I just watched a stream or two.... THAT BLOODY SECRET 1UP IN 8-BIT GREEN HILL ZONE ACT 2.....
1. What is your earliest memory of seeing Sonic anywhere? Christmas morning 1991 when my brother opened his big present that year: a Sega Genesis model 1 with Sonic 1 and Columns packed in. 2. What was the first Sonic related media actually you played/read/watched? Issue #5 of the Archie comic book series, though I didn't seriously get into the series until a few years later. I also have an early memory of playing Sonic 1 on the Genesis, but I freaked out when I got hit and lost my rings and gave up. Yeah... I was a wuss. ._. 3. Why do you still spend time here, reminiscing over the series today? I have no idea lol. 4. What's your favorite memory of the franchise over the past 30 years? Gosh, there's a lot here... Getting to the end of Ice Cap Zone act 2 only to have the Egg Capsule not appear for some reason. The cliffhanger finale to the SatAM series and being pumped to see where it went... only to have it not go anywhere. Huh... maybe that's not really a happy memory. >.> The epicness of the Endgame saga in the Archie comic (although in hindsight some parts of it were kinda dumb). Watching the trailer for the 1996 OVA in the movie theater in Sonic Jam and thinking it was the coolest shit ever. Same for all the other videos in that game. That big press conference that revealed Sonic Adventure for the first time. It was all in Japanese and had no English subtitles, but it was awesome. I think it was live-streamed too but I can't remember... I just remember watching some low quality RealVideo file of it. The reveal and release of Sonic Generations and Sonic Mania. Amazing games and definitely the best titles in the franchise in the last 10-15 years. The true final boss fight against Metal Sonic in Sonic Heroes. The game sucked, but the final boss was awesome. Finding out about the connection between Sonic 3 and Michael Jackson through that first Youtube video that went up waaaaaay back in 2006. Discovering various Sonic fan websites during the 90's and 2000's, and having my mind blown by all the fanfiction, artwork, MIDIs... finding out about the differences between the US and Japanese/European soundtracks for Sonic CD was crazy too. Artail Productions, Dan Drazen's site, Sonic HQ, Knuxcom, Sonic the Webhog, Sonic the Hedgehog Info Page, the various secrets/ROM sites... I remember downloading/streaming shitty quality RealVideo files of the 1996 OVA off of some site (I think it was a site run by the guy that made Sonic Robo Blast 2?). No subtitles on them, so I had to read some translated script thing from another site. Just straight up good times. While on the subject of fanworks, the different Flash animations released on Newgrounds and other sites over the years. The ones released by Sonic Paradox are always fun to go back and watch. My sister and I still quote "Chaos Swiss Roll!" every now and then. The best one overall IMO is the one that makes fun of shitty fan-characters. 5. What are your honest hopes for the next 10 years? Continued improvements in the games, and that the future movie(s) and shows don't suck. There's a very small part of me that wants the SatAM continuity to get an official revival/continuation, but I know it's never going to happen. Thankfully the Sea3on webcomic will suffice. Another concert like the one they did on Wednesday would be cool as well, maybe with more or different songs. A medley of the theme songs from the different animated series would be cool (if they can get the rights to all of them), and Sonic CD and Sonic 3 need more symphonic love too (though I imagine rights issues are why Sonic CD got nothing outside of Crush 40's Sonic Boom cover, and Sonic 3 only had Angel Island's music featured). Hell, I'd love to see a touring concert. 6. How will you celebrate the franchise today? I actually didn't do that much. >.> Only thing I did that day was watch/listen to the concert livestream which was awesome. More of that, please. I might play one of the Genesis games this weekend... if I can get my model 1 to work. It doesn't output anything when I turn it on, so I'm trying to troubleshoot it. If not, I have other means of playing the Genesis games. I still need to finish Sonic Mania, too...
1. What is your earliest memory of seeing Sonic anywhere? I got Heroes and Mega Collection for GameCube at about the same time, one of those was first. 2. What was the first Sonic related media actually you played/read/watched? Same as above. Sonic X, Sonic Riders and Sonic Advance 3 weren't too far behind though. 3. Why do you still spend time here, reminiscing over the series today? I don't know. There's something special about Sonic. Not just games either, but the fandom as well. I had dropped off after playing the Wii U demo for Lost World (you can tell that left an impression on me), and I had only heard about Mania and Forces until early 2019 when YouTube randomly started recommending me retrospectives of Sonic. That's when I learned what made the classics so special (because I didn't really get them as a kid, even though I loved Mega Collection). Seeing the community be so passionate about these games really resonated (and still resonates) with me in a way that other fandoms just don't. 4. What's your favorite memory of the franchise over the past 30 years? Now that I think about it, it might be playing Sonic Colors (Wii) when it came out. I was a kid at the time and loved the game. It's harder to go back to now that I have Generations (which I didn't play until last year), but Colors was my favorite Sonic game for a long time. 5. What are your honest hopes for the next 10 years? More Classic Sonic games (maybe even a 3D one). Another Rush-style 2D game would be nice. But really, I just want consistency out of the franchise. If SEGA wants to capitalize on the success of Mania and the movie, then they need to make sure the games they make are consistently of a high-quality. 6. How will you celebrate the franchise today? Well, on the anniversary itself, I watched a YouTuber try to play all of the mainline Sonic games in 24 hours (I think he succeeded, but I dropped off after Sonic 4 Episode 2, because I needed sleep).
1. What is your earliest memory of seeing Sonic anywhere? My earliest memory is a little hazy, it most likely wasn't my first time seeing Sonic but the first time I remember playing was at my aunt's house when I was 5; I was so excited because I finally carried 50 rings to the end of Green Hill and got into the special stage by myself, something I'd seen her boyfriend do countless times but just couldn't seem to pull off. This time I did, though, and promptly realized I had no idea how to control the special stage properly. I got thrown out pretty quick, but it still felt great to get there. 2. What was the first Sonic related media actually you played/read/watched? Sonic 1, as mentioned. That's all I had til 2 came out, which I got for Christmas the next year, along with my own Genesis I played both of them constantly, though I grew more fond of 2 simply for the addition of the spin dash. This is the only system I owned until the ps2 came out, and given that my parents refused to buy me games 'because you can just rent them', and I didn't want to rent games because I couldn't get good at them in a week or so, I just played Sonic 1 and 2, then Sonic & Knuckles constantly for about a decade. I never had 3, I only rented it a couple times, so I didn't even know they made one whole game until a year or so ago after getting deep into the fandom. 3. Why do you still spend time here, reminiscing over the series today? With my ps2 I only ever played THPS3 and rented Resident Evil a couple times, and somehow or another ended up with that Minority Report game, so I just never really got into it and gaming in general beyond that. All my friends had moved onto Halo and things of that ilk, and my brain could not comprehend using a joystick to aim (and I just don't really enjoy shooters), so besides occasionally playing Portal/Portal 2 at a friend's house and some Burnout here and there, I never played very much of anything for years and years. Around 2017, when my son was 3, I decided to download Steam and get a couple generic gamepads to have something to do with him. Knowing about Steam via my exposure to Portal, I downloaded that mostly to get Portal 2's coop mode; Since most of my gaming exposure had been regarding Sonic, I figured I'd see if there was any games on Steam and was immediately thrown through a loop at the massive amount of games I'd never heard of! I saw that Generations was the highest rated and grabbed that, and my first impression was being extremely turned off by the boost (once I realized spin dashing wasn't gonna happen), but slowly grew to love that game. I also got SA2 and, being the devilish, chaotic-dark type of person I am, started with the Dark storyline and was thrown into Iron Gate and thought 'wtf is this?!?' and never touched it for about a year. Eventually I dove further and further into the series, gaming in general, and emulation; I got into a period of pseudo-nostalgia with the Dreamcast (pseudo cuz I never actually had one), tried out and fell deeply in love with SA1, and realized I'd apparently been missing out on a LOT. I got super super into the entire Sonic catalog (Heroes is my current fav), finally played S3&K, fell in love with the JSR, Space Channel 5, Nights Into Dreams, Ristar and am basically living out the Sega nerd fantasy I missed out on over the last couple decades. I've played tons and tons of games over the past few years and there's just nothing that feels like or even comes close to Sonic/Sega for me. 4. What's your favorite memory of the franchise over the past 30 years? The moment I learned about Knuckles, and how amazing it was to me that they came up with a character even cooler than Sonic 5. What are your honest hopes for the next 10 years? I'd really love it if they could go back to the Adventure era. I don't see it happening, but that's the peak for me. It's everything I wanted the franchise to be. 6. How will you celebrate the franchise today I've been playing Heroes constantly and also listening to the Symphony over and over... So, more of that
