Do You Remember the First Time Sonic Ran into Your Life?

I don't remember when I started playing Sonic, I feel like I was just born playing it. I do have one memory though, of going over to my cousins house, and she was playing Sonic 2 while setting on a bean bag, and I sat next to her and played as Tails on the single player mode.

One Sonic game I do remember getting though is Sonic advance, I got it for my birthday and played it while we was driving to Legoland. I reached Angel Island I think, good times.

 

My first time seeing the blue blur was at a Christmas party around 1993. I was around 3 years old at the time, and was bored watching some black and white movie with a Red Balloon. Around that age I was quite the curious kid, and would venture around by myself to see what was around. I stumbled upon some older kids playing a Genesis in a back hallway. I saw what was on the screen and was absolutely entranced. The colors, the speed, the cool dude running along the landscape, all of it made my 3 year old self in awe.

Well the kids must have noticed, as they handed me the controller. "This is how to run, and this is jump." That was all my younger self needed to know, and I remember running straight into the first Motobug the very first try. I didn't care. THAT WAS FUN.

It wouldn't be until a few years later when I would get a Genesis of my own from one of my cousins. It came with Sonic 1 and 2, and I played those in the dark in absolute glee. One of my favorite moments in my life.

 

Oh man it has to be around 92 or 93 when one of my cousins was playing Sonic the Hedgehog.
On this day it happened to be my birthday and we did have a Sega Genesis.
After he beat the Spring Yard Zone boss he asked me if I wanted it for my birthday and I said yeah.
So he gave it to me.
Since then some of the others like the second game and eventually Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles came around in my possession.
When Knuckles Chaotix was released for the first time I knew immediately I was hooked into the series.

 

Sercive Merchandise. Miami, FL. I was 5. I would play it everytime I went and they had a setup in BJs Wholesale too.


I didn't own it until I was 6 when I was at my grandmas house. My parents had set the system up and the volume was too loud. I remember my brother and I in a room just waking up and I hear "SEGA!!!!!!!!!!!" I run to the living room and I was hooke 4 life. I got Sonic 1, Sonic 2, and John Madden Football '93 (and my brother STILL kicks my ass at this!) XMAS of 1992 was ingrained into my life forever. I also remember getting this metal balancing trinket thing I had on my dresser for years. My dad and brother got one, too, but mine stood the test of time.

Later on I got Sonic Spinball (completely unaware of Sonic CD until like 1996 and saw it as something that was too expensive and unobtainable....my first legit copy is in the GEMS collection) and Sonic 3. But nothing beats the years of replayability like Sonic 2.

 

I don't remember when I was introduced to Sonic. Was it a tv show, something I played at my cousins house, or the first game I was ever given? Not sure. I had to have been introduced to him early in life.

My first video game was Sonic 2. I remember playing the new Sega Genesis at the dining room tv with my mother. I loved to play Mario at my cousins house so I guess my parents thought it would be a good idea to buy me a Genesis and Sonic.

 

I saw Sonic CD for the first time around '94/'95 at a Best Buy. I think I was playing Palmtree Panic and I was very confused because the game looked like I was playing Sonic 1, but was different. Then I flipped a shit with I saw the Special Stage. I was like "OMGGG SONIC IS IN 3DDDDDDDDDD"....then my brother pulled me away and said we had to go home! Since I didn't have the internet, there was no way for me to research this, so I had no clue that I was playing Sonic CD on it's native system....and it was the first and last time I ever did

 

I remember it perfectly. I was 8 at the time and I was left in the toy department at Sears so my parents could do their shopping quietly. Suddenly I came accross a DEMO MegaDrive and it had Sonic 2. I decided to play it and I loved it. After that day whenever we went to Sears I just headed straight for that demo megadrive and played some Sonic 2 until my parents were done shopping. I then proceeded to ask for it for christmas and I got it! I was even greeted with Sonic 1 as my parents had realized how much I liked Sonic, they might as well buy me the first one too.

 

It was 1999 I think. I was over at a cousin's house and he just happened to have still owned a Model 2 Genesis console along with the copy of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 that came with it. As soon as the gamed booted, all I could do is stare like an awe struck moron. My life was never the same.

Nowadays I own the game myself and every time I start up the game I stare the same way. I think its a bad habit now.

 

Very interesting to see peoples memories of their first Sonic encounter. For me, my earliest memory of Sonic was of him in Starlight Zone, I must have been about 4 and remember my older brother playing it. Our Megadrive then got stolen and we got Sonic 2 after getting a new console. I was then reunited with Sonic 1 in 1995 after finally being given it as a birthday present. I remember we loved the music to Labyrinth Zone and the way Sonic gasped for air as he takes an air bubble underwater. Good memories

 

I don't exactly when I started, but I remember playing it for as long as I can remember. I know my brother got Sonic 2 roughly Christmas 92/93 (I think) packed with a Model 2 Genesis, and he usually let me play as Tails when I was young. I believe he got his Saturn (we were strictly a SEGA family) on his birthday around 1997/8, and I remember playing it at least before then. What I will always remember fondly, is the first time I used the Level Select/Debug/All Emeralds codes. For a long time, I could not get Super Sonic, or pass Wing Fortress Zone otherwise. Got Sonic 3 (as I inherited the Genesis by then) the same Christmas my brother got his Dreamcast (Maybe 99/2000).

 

It was in 1998 when after we borrowed a Super Nintendo Entertainment system from our apartment neighbors for a good few weeks and playing Super Mario Bros. 3 and an unknown Simpsons game (may have been Krusty's Fun House), we got the Sega Genesis. It was magic the moment I first popped in Sonic 2. But my major preference was for Sonic 3. Little did I know until my grandmother bought me a copy of the Sonic & Knuckles collection for her PC was there a second part. It didn't make any difference in S3K as a whole until I learned how to get past the damn barrel after several years (hey, this was 1999, I was 6! I didn't even know about Strategy Guides all too much). And I stayed up late at night on the weekends to watch AoStH on Toon Disney.

I also have fond memories of playing Sonic 3D Blast and CD on PC. The first moment CD crapped out on me? A message with this fucking face on it popped up:



That legitimately scared me and I had to have her come in and fix it for me. This render is seriously the most unnatural but now stupidly appalling dung this side of the UK. I can only imagine the looks on young UK Sonic fans' faces then.

 

Hey, when was AoStH on Toon Disney in the US?
Thats when I first had any knowledge of Sonic (Though it could've been a Dreamcast commercial that had Tails in it. It was around that time.)
I didn't actually play any of the games until SADX on the Gamecube. It was around then that I got hooked onto the series (Its also probably why I enjoy the 3D games more than most people.)

 

It was either one of two events. The promo comic in the November 1991 Disney Adventures issue, or Christmas morning that same year when my brother unwrapped his Sega Genesis. It was probably the Disney Adventures comic because that obviously would have come first given the publication date, but I don't recall it as much as I do Christmas morning. I still have that magazine somewhere, and I also own the very same Genesis my brother got that Christmas as well.

 

While I don't remember it exactly, I do remember my Dad asking me what "those things" were when the animals were escaping the pod the first time I beat Emerald Hill Zone. I replied, "I don't know, but I"m not stickin' around to find out!"

I was quoting Sonic from AoStH. I only recently realized that; it means that I must have been exposed to the cartoons first.

In any case, I got a Sega Genesis on my sixth birthday, May 25, 1994. I remember being interested but not enthralled by our neighbor's NES before then, but when my cousin showed me the Sonic games... it appealed to me from the moment I saw it.

 

My very first video game growing up (I had received a Sega Genesis for Christmas one year; I believe it was in either '97 or '98) was the original Sonic the Hedgehog that was packaged with the console, so pretty much I was introduced to Sonic from the very beginning, and at quite an early age. That quickly became my childhood obsession, and over time I bought (and still do buy) almost every other Sonic game available. As the years go by, I tend to come back to those games for that nice dose of nostalgia every so often, though I admittedly find the Dreamcast-era titles (SA1 and SA2) to be more nostalgic. I doubt I would be the gamer I am today if it weren't for those games.

 

Got introduced to Sonic the same way as the topic creator, and a lot of other people: Sonic 2's inclusion with the Genesis. Smart move, SEGA.

Reading these posts makes me all teary ... I may give Sonic 3&K a playthrough. I haven't in years.

 

My introduction to Sonic occurred sometime in either the latter half of 1992 or sometime in '93. Can't remember exactly when.

Anyway, my cousins, Ben and Charles, had just gotten a Genesis and Sonic 2, and for some reason my family was visiting them. My video game experience prior to this was rather limited. I had some brief interaction with some for of Atari and some years earlier I remember Charles playing the first Super Mario Bros. on a black and white TV.

So Sonic was immediately quite different, and at the time, they were only playing 2-player, so I only knew those 3 levels and the special stage. I was more drawn to Tails for some reason at the time.

I remember another visit at some point and they were playing the single-player version. I was surprised by seeing the game at full-screen and rather intrigued at how the music was different in the single-player zones.

And of course, being introduced to Sonic 2 first put me off Sonic 1 when I found out there was no spin dash.

 

Around October 1991. I was 2-years old so I didn't even know I wanted it at the time, but it was a Sega Mega Drive with one game. Sonic The Hedgehog.

I remember spending countless hours during each day, trying to get further and further every day. The lack of a save feature actually added a lot of replayability (at least for me) and as someone who couldn't even read at the time ("Press start? Daaaaaaaaaaad, come and start the game for me!") it was a challenge. I remember never being able to get past Labyrinth Zone. Nobody in my house could. It was only actually fairly recently that I found the trick involved (Sometime in the last 5 years or so) and actually completed the game.

Sonic 2 was far more fascinating for me as a kid. When I got it (Around 5?) I'd already played it a few times round friend's houses and I was definitely more appreciative of games at that age. I remember my grandmother coming to see my sports day at school in year 1 - she had a present for me, in her handbag. She slowly pulled out a copy of Sonic 2 and for the next few months, I was hooked.
I remember sitting and throwing continue after continue at the final boss - I was up right to my bedtime, still trying. One night, I was so hooked, I remember not noticing the thunderstorm outside and the game even kept me glued to the screen when my sister came in from the garden, crying that her rabbit had just died.

Sonic was a huge part of my childhood - the only games as a kid that I knew about before they were released and actively looked forward to. That didn't happen with any other games until I got my PlayStation and Crash Bandicoot 2 was on the way, so Sonic was definitely my road into the world of video games.

 

When I was a child at the time (I think most likely 3), I would go to my cousin's house, and he had Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for his Sega Genesis. I remember playing with him and my sister in the 2P mode. I always kept dying at some areas because I didn't know how to use the ABC buttons and jump. Still, it was my first and my most nostalgic Sonic game; and what could arguably had been the first video game I played as well the game that got me into gaming. Ironicaly, I never did own a Sega console, we got a Nintendo 64 instead.

I didn't really get into the franchise (as well as become a Sega Genesis fan) until the early 2000s, when I got the Sega PC Mega Pack, which had pretty much all of the classics excluding Sonic 1, and also included Spinball and Sonic R. I never got to play Spinball and CD much though (namely because Spinball was on Sega Smash Pack 1, which of course would only let you play the game once and then exit out after a period of time. As for CD....only once did I install it successfully -I think -, and even then I didn't pay much attention to it).

Also, I didn't really know about the redesigns until around 2003, and even then it was merely seeing a screenshot of Heroes in a magazine. Around 2005 I was introduced to the then-modern games, which included Adventure 2 Battle, Mega Collection, Heroes, and Riders.