Sonic The Hedgehog (1991)

> Sonic The Hedgehog is a 1991 Platformer released for the SEGA Genesis, SEGA Master System, and SEGA Game Gear. The game was published by SEGA, the Genesis version was developed by Sonic Team, the Master System and Game Gear version was developed by Ancient Corp. The game was released June 23, 1991 in America. The plot follows speedy hedgehog Sonic The Hedgehog race across south island to save it from evil scientist Dr. Robotnik
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## Plot

The game is about Sonic The Hedgehog (a edgy speedy hedgehog) goes around his home land of South Island to stop Dr. Robotnik from collecting 6 powerful gems called The Chaos Emeralds to take over the world. To do so, he must travel from zone to zone to stop his evil plans for world domination.

## Development

In 1989, gaming company SEGA launched their new console called the SEGA Genesis (Mega Drive in other countries) that ran on a 16-Bit processor to beat the Nintendo Entertainment System's 8-Bit processor. However, the console still was failing in sales, SEGA then realized that they needed games to defeat Nintendo. So SEGA made a lineup of new, edgier, games, but nothing worked that much. SEGA realized that they needed a mascot to rival Nintendo's Mario. So, they held a competition to see who could make the best mascot for their game.

The winner was SEGA video game designer Naoto Ohshima and his character Feel The Rabbit, a fast rabbit who could throw objects at his enemies. He went with SEGA programmer Yuji Naka and they got to work on making the game. But very early on they realized that there was a problem with the character. The mechanic where he would use his ears to chuck stuff at his enemies was to hard to animate and would slow down the pace of the game overall. So the two went back to square one with creating a new mascot for SEGA.

Ohshima and Naka went to SEGA employee Hirokazu Yasuhara to get some help with what they should do with their current situation. Yasuhara said that they should go with a character that could roll into a ball to attack his enemies while still keeping the pace of the game fast. After some research, they realized that there were two animals that could roll into a ball. The were the Armadillo and the Hedgehog. Thats when Ohshima had a lightbulb. For the past few years when he was bored, he would take out his pencil and draw a hedgehog he called Mr. NeedleMouse. Naka liked the character but knew that a hedgehog named Mr. NeedleMouse would not be cool to the gamers the wanted to buy the game. So, they did some improvements and Sonic The Hedgehog was born. They got to work on the new speedy game and by 1990, they had a full blown playable demo of the game. Since there were no gaming conventions at the time, they showed it at a toy show. The demo was very early in development, so a lot of things were different about this version of the game.

## Release

On June 23, 1991, Sonic The Hedgehog was released in America and was a instant success. Gamers and Critics liked the fast pace of the game and was so popular that gamers started to buy the Genesis over the brand new Super Nintendo. The game has been so successful it's been ported onto any device known to man. Sonic would become a gaming icon and would lead to even more games.

## 8-Bit Version

*Main Article: Sonic The Hedgehog (8-Bit)*

There was a version of the game released on SEGA's 8-Bit consoles made by Ancient Corp. The game is very similar to the 16-Bit version of the game except it contains different levels than the Genesis version of the game.

## Trivia

* This is the first game in the Sonic The Hedgehog Series
* Despite this, this isn't his first appearance in Media. His first appearance was in the SEGA arcade game *Rad Mobile*, where he made a cameo as a Air Refresher.
* The 8-Bit version was NOT developed by Sonic Team, but by at the time new gaming company Ancient Corporations.
* Due to the success of the game, many companies would try to make similar games to the Sonic series. But these knock-offs mostly failed to sell good.
* This is the first Sonic game to be released on the SEGA Genesis.
* This is the first Sonic game to be released on the SEGA Master System.
	+ This is the first Sonic game to be released on the SEGA Game Gear.

## Resources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQlNWAdHk3k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6ITWcm32Og

Sonic and His Amazing History book