Sonic The Hedgehog was released this day in 1991 on Sega Mega Drive. What are your memories playing Sonic?

I was too young to play Sonic when it came out, and never had a Genesis, but I played the games at a friend's house as a kid in the mid-90s. Maybe it was the fact that by then I'd had my hat blown off by Super Mario 64, but Sonic didn't grab me like even the 2D Mario games did. I do enjoy them now, but then, I was just sort of nonplussed.

The first Sonic game I remember really enjoying was Sonic Adventure, which we rented along with a Dreamcast when it came out. I remember it being a big deal because Blockbuster had this whole thing where you could rent the Dreamcast 2 weeks before it came out for sale in North America. Anywho, Sonic Adventure was a blast. I remember the hub world being really cool and impressive at the time, it felt like the next evolution of 3D platformers. Looking back it really isn't that mindblowing, but I guess just having a 3D platformer with that sense of speed grabbed my attention at the time.

I've played a number of Sonic games since then (but not all of them) and often have a good time. I wouldn't call myself a Sonic fan per se, but when one comes out and looks interesting I'm game. Nowadays especially (can't speak for Frontiers here because I haven't played it), I find I appreciate the straightforward level-based nature of Sonic games more as an adult than I did as a kid. They kind of meld well with SEGA's usual philosophy -- they excelled at arcade games for so long, that even their games made for home systems typically ended up feeling very arcade-y... easy to pick up and play and have fun immediately instead of 'wasting your time' so to speak. And these days those kinds of games are harder and harder to come by, since arcades have died, and strictly handheld gaming (which also kinda followed that style) is mostly dead now too.

I've never read any of the Sonic comics nor have any desire to, but I remember enjoying Sonic Underground as a kid. Never seen a lick of it since it was on in the 90s though.

Someone had a Sega Mega Drive at our halls of residence at Uni. We would cram into a room, smoke a spliff and play into the late hours. Some of the best memories!

The game itself seemed so advanced with its graphics, music, secret areas and gameplay (allowing you torun back to the left of the screen, unlike other games which didn't allow that).

Sonic 2 is the first console game I remember playing, and still waaay up on my list of favorites.

Sonic Adventure on Dreamcast is the first game I remember beating. I’ve always enjoyed video games, but I wouldn’t say I’m super great, especially at end game content. So finishing SA1 was a big deal at the time. I think I beat SA2 as well, but it wasn’t as memorable as the Chaos kaiju.

I’m a pretty big Sonic fan - the current IDW comics are a lot of fun. I’d recommend reading them on Hoopla if your library supports that.

Just watched the annual Sonic Central livestream on YouTube, and I’m looking forward to playing the Sonic Frontiers birthday update later today. Really excited for Sonic Superstars coming up this fall - looks like it captures a lot of what made the original games great (as did Sonic Mania). And I’ve got Lego gift cards sitting in wait for when the Sonic sets come out in August.

So yeah, lots of good past fun playing, and lots of current fun!

Ah! A fellow Brit. Most times I see this console called a Genesis.

I played Sonic a lot back in the day. Mostly the first 2 zones since I wasn't that good. I can still hear the music. Golden Axe and Streets of Rage were my main jam though. Great for coop with school friends.

I had a Genesis and just remember the sound of him spinning up and hitting the spring platforms so vividly. I would have been late elementary age when it came out though Sonic would lose my attention by the next year for sure when Mortal Kombat came out for Genesis. I was an arcade brat and fighting games quickly became my thing but Sonic was introductory to the system for me and I played it plenty. Beat it...I think? lol

Sonic 2 was my first game, played it with my uncle on his Genesis. S3&K is probably still my favorite game of all time. Definitely loved playing Sonic Mega Collection on GameCube. Other favorites would be Sonic Adventure 1&2, Heroes, Unleashed, and Generations. I haven't played many of the newer ones (though I'd like to try Frontiers).

My memory of the Mega Drive (what the Genesis was called in the UK) and Sonic was my uncle Les winning a large amount of money on some sort of bet (I was too young to really care but I believe it was thousands and thousand of pounds).

He bought me a Mega Drive with Sonic 1 and 2 in 1994 and I remember playing it a ton, it was mindblowing to me as I only ever had the NES that my dad got from my mum as a wedding present in the late 80's so the visuals were really cool to me as a 4 year old.

I still have that Mega Drive, along with my dad's NES and a second hand SNES I bought when I got my first job (that wasn't a paper run) at 19. They're upstairs in mines and my partners spare room plugged into an old CRT TV. While I tend to play older games via emulator out of convenience it's still nice to play on the original console through a CRT TV.

Younger people may have trouble imagining how much of a graphical breakthrough Sonic was. Sonic was rich, complex, colorful, and FAST in a way that blew the minds of a generation. It was the bleeding edge, the perfect embodiment of a Mega Drive's power, and flowed in a unique and rythmic way. You were "in the zone".

I didn't have anything Sega really, we usually got my cousins' consoles once they moved on to a new system, and that started with Nintendo.

I do remember spending a couple weeks at their home with my aunt & uncle though during the summer (they live six hours away from us), and my aunt and uncle were a little more strict than my family at home, so no tv at bedtime which was awful for me because I had terrible insomnia and usually wouldn't sleep for a day or two at a time.

They eventually got Game Gears, and I remember hiding under the blanket late at night to play Sonic on low volume - and they even had a battery pack attachment on it, so I could play for a while. I remember it being so FAST and COLORFUL - it was beautiful and smooth - and a lot of fun. I looked forward to going to bed at night to play it when I was there.

I don't recall which Sonic it was though, but when I got older (late teens), I was given the Game Gear with the battery pack .. and the Sonic game. I still have it stored away.

Good times.

I remember playing Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast and not quite being able to get at all the buttons with my tiny child hands and bonking into everything.

Recently, my husband and I played Sonic Frontier together as the first Sonic game we played together.

Most of my memories with Sonic are more about the shows than the games, but You can't have the shows without the games so I'm grateful.

Of my boyfriend kicking my arse every time. I had a Nintendo so I couldn't practice inbetween visits and for some reason I was so bad at it. It's a sore point to this day how truly terribly I was!!

However, he had some skills, as he finished 'The Lost Levels' without too much trouble. I realised then that I wasn't going to beat him. Ever 🙂.

I was the first person to clock Sonic with the emeralds at my school.

This was obviously pre-mainstream internet, pre-smartphone days so I had no proof to bring to school and nobody believed me.

Too many to count, but I'll list the highlights:

--Waking up Christmas morning to play Green Hill Zone in Sonic 1 and hearing the music. Instant core memory

--Some of the early strange and hard games, like Kid Chameleon, which was basically a coded fever dream

--Buying Shining Force II from my friend for $5, ended up becoming my favorite overall game for the system and one that I still break out every now and then.

My 1st favorite video game was Sonic 2. Sonic still holds a big spot in my heart. Not too big a fan at where the franchise has gone but that will never tarnish the love I have for the classic sonic games.

Our family never had NES or SNES, the first video game system we got was the Genesis. My dad surprised us with it, and at first all we had was Sonic and Sonic 2. It was plugged into a 20 inch TV that had no remote and a small keypad on the front.

Sonic 2 was great, because my 2 youngest brothers could be Tails and just get dragged along. But I was never very good at either of those games. But still loved them!

The oldest of my 3 little brothers was the only one to beat both games. I fondly remember sitting for hours watching him do play throughs and cheering for him as he got closer to the end. You couldn't save your progress. Once you turned it off you had to start over. Run out of lives? Start over.

The recently released Sonic Mania is one of the coolest game ideas I've ever seen. It is a brilliant revival of those classic Sonic games. The original levels are included, but there are new characters and new levels that they managed to design in a way that makes them fit perfectly alongside the originals. It was like jumping in a time machine and getting to see a new level in the original Sonic for the first time, again. I bought my brother a copy instantly.

I grew up with Sega Smash Pack 2 on Windows XP. Did not know that they were not PC games. Did not know what a console was. I had a blast playing Sonic 2 though. Along with Comix Zone, Kid Chameleon, Shining Force, Super Hang-On, Flicky, probably more I'm forgetting. Sonic 2 was an arcade game for me, since there were no save states or anything. I'd sit down and be like let's give this another go. Last for like two hours when I was only supposed to be playing on the computer for one hour, die in that factory level with the red enemies that punch you with the spiked arms. Good times. Played it more recently and got to the final boss, and at that point it's just ridiculous. Weirdly, despite my love for Sonic 2, I have not been able to get into any other Sonic game. I'll have to give one another try though

(Born late 90’s, England)

My first introduction was a TV show. I believe it was called Sonic x? 5 year old me thought it was cool as anything. A few years later I get a Sonic game on the ps2 that was a collection of all the classic sonic games: pinball, dodgy handheld ports, the originals, sonic and knuckles. Thought it was absolutely awesome!

Funily enough, and I’m being serious, my better memory of sonic is the Xbox 360 version of sonic. The really broken one. I just found it really enjoyable for some reason - even if, objectively, it really is a thrown together mess.

Sonic 2 was the first Sonic game I ever played. The memory of how we all perceived it at the time was that it was so much sleeker and futuristic than Super Mario Bros., especially the first Super Mario Bros. where the player couldn't move backwards on screen only forwards. You could move backwards on Super Mario Bros. 3 however. It was hard not to call the rings, coins because we were so used to Mario. The loopty loops were entrancing. Sonic & Knuckles was even more fun. Controlling a flying Knuckles was great. Some parents who played Mario with us kids, didn't like the change to Sonic and thought the back and forth and loops were confusing. This made me laugh because we all thought it was more realistic. Couldn't have imagined 3D Mario and Sonic in the coming years.

Few things haunt me as much as the damned drowning music cue in the Labyrinth level. Linked so you too can have your blood pressure spike.