A Genesis in More Ways Than One

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Green Hill Zone from Sonic Mania. Courtesy of Youtube Channel "Blue Blur"

Have you ever taken a moment to consider your "first video game"? It can be an odd topic. For some, their first video game holds no importance to them; it was either a fun distraction or a horrible mess. They don't take stock in their first video game because they never really continued gaming, or another game later on set their love for gaming ablaze. However, for myself, my first video game and the game that made me fall in love with gaming managed to be one in the same.

Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis was way past cool with blast processing, and you were definitely a nerd if you didn't have one. Or so Sega's marketing would have us believe. Actually, I completely missed out on this weird marketing war between Sega and Nintendo. Honestly, I loved both Mario and Sonic. Heck, I owned a Game Boy and regularly played Mario on it. However, something about the Blue Blur caught my attention, and I found myself running through the majestic green hills much more than exploring the Mushroom Kingdom.

Honestly, it's not the greatest video game ever. In fact, I'd even be tempted to say the first game is bad. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic 3 and Knuckles are significantly better games that carry on the legacy of Sonic much more faithfully. Yet...I didn't own either of those. I owned the first game alone. So sit down as we dive deep into a flawed game starring one of the most iconic characters in gaming.

Rolling at the Speed of Sound

Green Hill Zone represents everything great about Sonic. The vibrant, colorful landscapes, the iconic music blaring in the background, and the loopty-loops that defy gravitiy yet feel custom made for Sonic all contribute to this masterpiece. It's literally comfort food for Sonic fans. You can always go back to Green Hill and have a good time. It's just a shame that everything Green Hill does right...every future zone would ignore or outright spit in the face of.

You see, Sonic's zones go through a theme. Green Hill represents the fun-filled natural world. The only machinary here are Robotnik's (or Eggman's if you played the original Japanese version) badnicks. Yet, as you progress, the backgrounds and settings become more and more industrialized. Now, maybe the game developers were making a statement. "Nature is better than industrialization." After all, ten seconds into Scrap Brain Zone...

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Scrap Brain Zone Remix. Courtesy of "Official VGM"

...and you'll instantly be missing those glorious green hills.

Gotta Wait Fast

After Green Hill triumphantly captures the feeling of being the "fastest thing alive," Marble Zone and subsequent zones grinds everything to a tedious halt. The visuals still look nice but not nearly as iconic. You wait on blocks across slow-moving lava in a zone with only one path forward. You venture underwater where you constantly have to collect air bubbles to stay alive. You have to watch out for literal pitfalls that insta-kill you and punish you for going fast in the first place.

"But Mark," you might be saying, "if the game is so bad, why do you love it?" And that's a fair question. I don't think it's right to say I love this game; in fact, when I get the urge for old-school Sonic, I usually pop in Sonic the Hedgehog 2. However, you underestimate how much Sonic sold the game. It didn't matter that the game was bad; I was young and naive anyway. I was playing as Sonic!

Memories of a Blue Wind

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Green Hill Zone (Modern) from Sonic Generations. Courtesy of "DeoxysPrime".

As a kid, sports or physical activities weren't really my forte. In fact, I was pretty physically weak. I tried to get stronger, but none of my efforts ever seemed to manifest. Races, workouts, sports...no matter what it was, I always came in or close to last place. Yet, when I turned on that game console and picked up a controller...I was suddenly on an even playing field. Now, I wasn't that good at games, and one cousin in particular reminded me of this everytime he visited. He was like the King of Video Games in my eyes, and I was the starry-eyed young protagonist who needed to hone my skills to compete and eventually surpass him.

Sonic also featured a vast multimedia world. There were cartoon shows, comic books, movies, etc. Sonic was everywhere. Sure, the shows didn't age super well, and the comic books eventually fell into the same plotline traps of every other comic book. However, my point is...the quality of the game didn't matter. Sonic was more than just a video game character. He was a hero. He loved freedom. He didn't just stand by while others were in trouble. He was someone a child could and should look up to.

I often hear that Sonic doesn't work nowadays because he was designed to be "cool" by 90s standards, and while this is true for his voiced dialogue and overall "attitude" persona, I disagree that Sonic isn't still cool. Rather, I think modern audiences misunderstand what truly made Sonic cool. Sonic wasn't cool because he flashed a thumbs up and winked at the camera every second. He wasn't cool because he said things like "way past cool". Sonic was cool because he was Sonic. He was cool because he could run anywhere he wanted at anytime, and yet, he always made sure to be there when he saw others in trouble. Sonic's actions were what made him cool. But we'll explore that topic more later... thumbs up wink

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed, and that you stick around for this month-long journey into my gaming career. Revisiting my memories of Sonic was a blast, and I'm already looking forward to the other games I want to talk about.