Sonic The Hedgehog Game

Sonic the Hedgehog was released in June 1991 by Sega after being created by the Sonic Team. The game was released in North America and Europe at the same time. 3 days later it came to the Japanese market. The game was produced for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. After its release it replaced Altered Beast as the classic game bundled with the Mega Drive and was a massive hit in North America.

Before Sonic arrived, Sega had a tame mascot in the form of Alex Kidd. They rolled out many Alex Kidd games but the mascot simply wasn't strong enough to hold the Sega brand in the light that Mario held Nintendo. Sega took the decision to scrap Alex Kidd and create a new mascot, with many ideas in the bag including an armadillo, a rabbit with huge floppy ears, a dog that resembled Theodore Roosevelt and a spiky hedgehog. When the latter was chosen he was originally named Mr NeedleMouse, having been chosen as the mascot he was renamed and painted blue to match Sega's logo.

Sonic is a 15 year old anthropomorphic hedgehog, which means he's an animal with human characteristics and to apply the icing on the cake, he was designed with a bad ass attitude as opposed to a fluffy bunny angelic persona. He is Japanese created like most other popular video game mascots and is now only second to Mario in all time video game brand successes.

Both Sonic and Mario characters feature in a series of Nintendo games namely Super Smash brothers and Sonic and Mario Olympics. In Super Smash Brothers both can be chosen to fight each other. This proved a nice bit of mutual cooperation between Sega and Nintendo.

Sonic's art and form varies depending on the type of media. In most of the Sonic games he is a short and round hedgehog looking rather like a baby than in comics and later games where he is much taller and looks older and has appears to have more attitude. However all media must follow the design model sheets so variations can only go so far.

The Ultimate Flash Sonic game that can be played above has many similarities and features of the original game and is an enjoyable recreation.

Sonic the Hedgehog video game took platform games to a new level of popularity introducing features never seen before including high speed encounters, loops, springboards and other speed powered devices that enabled Sonic to fly through many parts of a level with great effect. As of November 2007 the game has sold 4million copies, only surpassed by Sonic 2 which has sold 6 million copies.

The story line follows Sonic and Doctor Robotnik (the villain). Doctor Robotnik is attempting to collect the six chaos emeralds in order to rule South Island and reak misery upon the poor wildlife of the land. Sonic must venture through 6 zones with each containing 3 acts and then one final zone which contains 1 act. At the end of each zone Sonic the Hedge Hog confronts Dr Robotnik in a different machine which he must destroy to complete the zone.

He will eventually reach the final zone where he attempts to put an end to Dr Robotnik's scheme. Sonic the Hedgehog's game play is what proved most popular with many fans. Its simplicity much like the early 80s arcade games was the main factor behind its huge success.

Unique Abilities

Sonic was the first platform game to make a character travel at tremendous speeds across the terrain encouraging the player to speed up and complete an act in a short period of time. This made the game more exciting and gave the player a great feeling of exhilaration. It also took full advantage of the Sega Mega Drives 16 bit console power which allowed the game to move at such a fast frame rate whilst avoiding any possible screen loads or slowing effects. The Sonic game flash version hosted at Games Lunatic cannot offer the same speeds that the original game offers, but the developer has done a very good job in making the flash version as close to resembling the Sega Mega Drive version as possible.

The movement of Sonic around 360 degree circles and up and down slopes made the platform game completely unique. The game play also took into account the true physics of gravity, where by Sonic would accelerated and gain speed down steeper slopes and would fire off over the terrain into the distance in a matter of seconds.

Sonic could also curl up into a ball and turbo charge his speed to move along and kill enemies - this wasn't introduced until the second in the series on the Mega Drive, but the sonic game in flash shown above also has this cool feature. His curled ball shape and spikes were his main weapons, quite a novelty for the time when all platform predecessors focused on either shooting or jumping on top of an enemy to kill it.

Gold Rings & Sonic

One of the main features of the Sonic the Hedgehog game play is the collection of gold rings. A player must hold at least 1 ring when hit in order to survive. If the player has no rings and is hit by an enemy, they will die. The gold rings can be collected in many places throughout any act. When Sonic gets hit by an enemy he will shed up to 40 of his rings, some of which can be recollected before they disappear. If Sonic collects 100 rings then he gains a life, if he has 50 rings or more when he completes an act a giant gold ring will appear in which to jump through to enter a bonus level. At the end of each act the number of rings Sonic has left is multiplied by 100 and added to the points score.

Other items can also be found throughout an act in TV boxes including a shield for protection, a 10 ring bonus and super sneakers.

Sonic can loose his life instantly by being crushed by a trap or drowning in water, regardless of how many rings he has.

The 7 zones you have to navigate Sonic the Hedge Hog through are Green Hill Zone, Marble Zone, Spring Yard Zone, Labyrinth Zone, Starlight Zone, Scrap Brain Zone and Final Zone.

Developments in Sonic the Hedgehog 2

The sequel to the original game sees Sonic once more battle it out with Dr Robotnik. This time he has a side kick named Tails who you can also play as. The player can select from 3 options, using Sonic alone, Tails alone or both together.

If you choose both characters you must choose Sonic as your main character with Tails simply following behind, usually by flying, in which case he can sometimes float off the screen!

Sonic could not spin and dash until the second game. As a fan of Sonic it is quite easy to believe that the first game had this ability but it was not until the second game could sonic actually spin and attack.

The bonus round becomes much more exciting, instead of a rotating maze where you have little control over Sonic, the second games bonus round features Sonic and Tales running at high speed and chasing down rings in order to obtain the emerald crystal. The stage features 3 check points, if you haven't collected 50 rings by each checkpoint the bonus round ends and you fail to collect the crystal. This round is far more fun than the original game and features funky music; the first game had this annoying dreamy music that could easily irritate you in a mere amount of seconds.

In Sonic Game in flash, there are no apparent bonus rounds, what I would like to see in the future is for the Sega team to bring their own flash version out of the game, I think it would be absolutely huge.

There is also an awesome feature where having won over all 7 emerald crystals Sonic can then turn into Super Sonic! The next time you collect 50 rings you turn into a glowing white and yellow hedgehog that can run and jump at a much faster rate than the ordinary Sonic. You are also invincible against all enemies but can still be crushed and drown.

Your ability diminishes second by second by a count down of your ring collection, so in order to maintain this form you must keep collecting rings.

Sonic game flash is about as good a quality remake as you will currently find online on all the gaming portals out there.