My introduction to Sonic the Hedgehog was in 1992, when I spent the night at my cousin’s house and found they had a Sega Genesis. Sonic the Hedgehog was the pack in game. I wasn’t allowed to play for whatever reason. Maybe it was the assumption that all children have sticky fingers. In their defense, I was in 1st grade so; maybe. Still, I did a lot of spectating. Watching the blue hedgehog zip across the screen, bold colors, and don’t get me started on the star invincibility power up. The stars trailing behind Sonic sealed the deal for me. I had to get my hands on this game.

It wouldn’t be until 1993 when my brothers and I would get our own Sega Genesis. I finally had the chance to play Sonic the Hedgehog, except there was one problem. With one Sega Genesis console, four brothers, me being the youngest, I still didn’t get much time with it. Sometimes they would hide the console from me. Regardless I was determined to get some time to fully experience Sonic the Hedgehog.

One morning I found the perfect opportunity. My mother was leaving and would be gone for quite some time. My dad was home from work and wanted to sleep. So I decided to fake being sick to stay home from school. This was a gamble. There was a chance my dad would tell my mother to bring me with her. Still, I rolled the dice and my gamble paid off. I promised my dad I would be quiet and he allowed me to stay home.

Thankfully, the Model 1 Sega Genesis had the headphone port with the volume slider. I sat quietly with a pair of cheap headphones that I pulled from a $10 walkman I had from Dollar General. I played Sonic the Hedgehog for the entire day. Perfecting every stage, eventually beating the game. Then circling back to collect all of the Chaos Emeralds to get the true ending. 

By the time my brothers arrived home from school, my mom close behind them, I had accomplished what I had set out to do. Feeling satisfied, I left my brothers alone to enjoy the Sega Genesis by themselves. That day I knew Sonic the Hedgehog would be my go to game. I played every sequel, giving them the same treatment as I did Sonic 1.

When Sega released the Dreamcast with Sonic Adventure my love for the Sonic franchise became even more intense. Sega had successfully brought Sonic into the modern 3D world like Nintendo had achieved with Mario 64. After finishing Sonic Adventure 3, I just knew Sega would follow up with Sonic Adventure 3. As I’m sure you know, we never got Sonic Adventure 3. Sega discontinued the Dreamcast and began porting games to the Microsoft XBOX and Sony Playstation 2.

Over the years Sega would release versions of Sonic such as Sonic Advance, Sonic Mega Collection, and Sonic Heroes. I was confused as to why Sega had not released a mainline Sonic game. Sure they didn’t have their own console, but they were releasing games on XBOX, Playstation, and even the Nintendo Gamecube. What was going on? Surely they had something up their sleeve.

Finally in 2005 Shadow the Hedgehog was released. While it wasn’t that great of a game in my opinion, it gave me hope. It was a sign that Sega was not done with the flagship Sonic titles. More time passed and things went silent for a little while.

In 2006 it happened. Sega released Sonic the Hedgehog for the XBox 360 and PS3. I didn’t own either console. But I just knew it had to be great. I mean, they had given it the same title as the first Sonic game. Sonic the Hedgehog was back and though I didn’t have a console to play them, I was excited for when I eventually would.

Sonic and the Secret Rings, Sonic Colors and more titles followed. Eventually I was able to play Sonic the Hedgehog for the Xbox 360. Let me tell you, that was probably the biggest let down I had ever experienced in my gaming life. I couldn’t believe how bad it was. Why had they not done something similar to Sonic Adventure? Sure it wasn’t perfect, but I thought they would take what they had made and improve on it.

Frustrated, I went back to Gamestop and grabbed the other Sonic games thinking, there has to be something good here. Sonic and the Secret Rings for the Wii wouldn’t prove to be any better. Sonic Unleashed wasn’t horrible I suppose, but it was far from a great game. What was happening over at Sega? Who allowed the Sonic franchise to have such mediocre games?

Nintendo in contrast had never released a bad Mario game. There are some that are better than others, but there’s no version of reality where Nintendo would treat the Super Mario franchise like a pet project. Okay, okay; yes, there was Super Mario Bros 2 but that wasn’t really a super mario game. And even that was okay for it being a reskin. I just couldn’t believe there wasn’t a good Sonic game. Did Sega not care anymore?

Since then the only Sonic game I had truly enjoyed was Sonic Generations. Which I kind of resent now because it led me to believe Sega had realized their mistake and was on the path to fix it. Nope. The mediocre Sonic games continued. I had given up on the Sonic franchise as a whole.

Enter Sonic Mania. A true return to form that was worked on by Christian Whitehead, Headcannon, and PagodaWest Games. Sonic Mania was a great game. But it wasn’t what I had wanted. I still wanted Sonic Adventure 3 or something like it.

Sega released a teaser for what would eventually become Sonic Frontiers. The teaser gave off heavy Sonic Adventure vibes. A browse through the comments section of the video confirmed I wasn’t the only one thinking this might just be the Sonic Adventure 3 game we all wanted.

Have I learned nothing? Have I not learned that this was not the same Sega I had grown up on? Sonic Frontiers was more of the same autorun like mechanics except for the open world sections which were awkward and boring. The game felt off at release. Things like speed and movement were not up to standard. In their defense, they did fix a lot of that.

Still, myself and others were let down again. In 2023 Sega announced that the follow up to Sonic Frontiers would have a bigger budget. This confirmed what I had suspected all along. Sega was not funding Sonic the way Nintendo did with Mario and their other franchises. Could you imagine Nintendo not giving Mario or Zelda a large budget? Giving a small budget was something you did with new franchises that hadn’t proven themselves yet. I couldn’t believe it. 

Sega did eventually attempt to give Nintendo some competition with Sonic Superstars, which was so very close. The main issue with that game is the boss fights are too long and can’t be exploited. Exploiting ways to clear the levels faster and defeat boss’s quicker is a core part of Sonic games. There was also some technical issues such as controller latency on some platforms. If not for these issues, Sonic Superstars would have been a solid Sonic game.

I don’t know what Sega has planned next but I really hope they put their all into the Sonic franchise. If they went back to Sonic Adventure and understood what made that work, paired it with today’s technology, they could really have something special. Here’s hoping.

I didn’t go through every Sonic game above so I do want to give Sonic All Star Racing Transformed a shout out. That game rocks.