Ah yes… going down memory lane and nostalgia, this character was freakin awesome. I played the hell out of the games as a kid, and sometimes I still pick ‘em up to play today.
Sonic the Hedgehog was always my favorite mascot, and still is today. Oh sure, bad animated series’s and bad games have sort of diluted him down, but I still think he’s awesome. Imagine my surprise when I saw him in Smash Bros. Brawl!
In fact, I think I still have a plush toy of sonic somewhere in my storage room…
Sonic was by far the coolest character of all time… Great attitude, fully confident, and an effective warrior.
I’d like to go on about some points about Sonic that I think of whenever Sonic is brought up.
Sonic vs Mario
There’s absolutely no contest: Sonic wins by a landslide. Honestly, I don’t see what everyone sees in Mario… Let alone the majority of the Mario games. He came out at a time when games were only slightly more complicated than pac-man. A platformer (y’know, like Pitfall and Donkey Kong) game with a very simple story, and a creative environment. Mario 3 came out with all kinds of powerups and things to mix up the gameplay and make it more interesting… but the story was always the same. Princess captured, and Mario has to save her.
Mario vs Other Nintendo Characters
Sonic came around when games had more substance, so I’ll judge Mario based around the games that came out around Mario’s time. As a matter of fact, I’ll leave Sonic out of the comparison, because I think other Nintendo characters were far more interesting than Mario. None moreso than Samus. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. From all the Mario games, here’s what I’ve gathered about Mario and the people he interacts with.
Mario: Boring. He hardly talks, and when he does, it’s pretentious. To describe his character, about the only terms I can use are “happy” and “high-jumping”.
Luigi: Green Mario. That’s it.
Princess Toadstool/Peach: Um… She’s a princess! And… Uh… She’s pretty! And… She’s very easily captured! … Y’know that’s really all anyone can say about her. Why does Mario even bother saving her? She’s perhaps the most boring girl ever to be saved.
Bowser: He captures the princess all the time, but never with any real purpose. I never understood why they bothered developing his character past that of just a generic dragon guarding the damsel. Why bother? What benefit is there to capturing a princess of a species different from your own? Sure, I can think of one or 2 that I’d use like ransom or forced control over the kingdom, but he does neither. He just captures her, and that’s it. Wow. What a revolutionary.
On the other hand…
Toad: Brave, naive, and ready to take on a challenge. Toad is the one getting shit done most of the time. Why all the credit goes to Mario, I have no idea. I think the games should be based off of Toad.
Now let’s look at some other Nintendo characters.
Samus: Relentless, powerful, and badass. She doesn’t talk much, but she does reflect on things. You see her make moral decisions when she takes on the baby metroid. You see her almost lose hope against the mother brain metroid, then her relief at being rescued by the baby metroid… You see her backstory unfold as she reflects on her late commander…
Mega Man: Always questioning his identity. His purpose. Fighting against Wily, but can never figure out why. An actual story.
Zelda: Wise, yet sometimes reckless. Doing everything in her power to stop her land from being destroyed, and failing. Remaining hopeful in the hero.
You see what I’m getting at? All these stories are far more interesting than Mario…
Which finally brings me to Sonic.
Sonic is more interesting
Without even reading the manual, he’s interesting. Leave him standing still for a minute. He taps his foot impatiently. He loves speed, and grows impatient when having to wait. Already there’s more character than Mario has. Now, let’s read the manual. Sonic self-proclaims himself as the fastest thing alive. He’s always got that determined smirk, as he’s not afraid of any challenge brought to him. His enemy, Robotnik, is trying to take over the world. He’s doing so by turning all the animals into robots. Admittedly a stupid way of going about it, but at least his goal is comprehensive. It’d be simpler to just build an army of robots rather than hunt down all the woodland creatures, bring ‘em back, roboticize them, then program them to do his bidding… but, I guess everyone needs a hobby. Robotnik is tricky… always getting the drop on Sonic throughout the games. He fools Knuckles into fighting Sonic, and he always seems to be digging around where he’s not supposed to. He’s trying every scheme in the book to obtain the Chaos Emeralds to give him ultimate power.
Little does he know that Sonic obtains them to become Super Sonic, which really foils his plot.
You see, this is a story. It’s not overly complex with many different themes, but it’s cohesive, and mostly makes sense. The enemy always keeps things interesting, and Sonic’s attitude gives the viewer/player the sense that they can overcome anything. If Sonic’s not panicking, then why should you be?
Looking more into Sonic, he also has flaws. He’s too bold and reckless. This is evident even in the games. You want to go fast all the time, and if you don’t, Sonic’s there impatiently tapping his foot. But, always going fast gets you into trouble. Not looking before you leap… Such is the reflection of Sonic’s character.
Here’s another comparison: check the look on Sonic’s face when you die. Now look at Mario’s.
See a difference? When Mario dies, it’s like “Uh oh! Oh well!” When Sonic dies, he has a mixed look on his face… fear, surprise, and astonishment. I’m… dead? How?! There’s no freakin way!
Also, sorry Nintendo, but the music present in Sonic games is far superior. Enough of that happy little jingle. Oh I know a few bits from Mario that are catchy, but Sonic’s music is far more creative and talented.
Mario, I never really liked you. You had some fun games to play, but you, as a person, always bored me.
The Best Game: Sonic 3 and Knuckles
I’ll never forget reading about the Sonic and Knuckles lock-on in my Sega Visions magazine. It was the coolest idea. Many don’t know, but Sonic 3 was actually an unfinished game. It was meant to have another playable character, and more levels. The story was supposed to be more drawn out. Unfortunately, they couldn’t finish it in time. Do the level select code to see some of the levels that you can’t go to… look familiar?
They’re levels from Sonic and Knuckles. What Sega did was awesome… Let’s make up for our mistake by giving you an expansion game that also works as standalone. You can play through just the story of Sonic and Knuckles, or you can combine Sonic 3 in to make a complete story. Ah hell, just because we want to redeem ourselves further for disappointing you, plug Sonic 2 in here to be able to play as Knuckles through Sonic 2. Do you forgive us? Yes. Yes we do.
Sonic 3 was cool on its own anyway. Sure you had Super Sonic again, but look at the new shields you can find. They’ll protect you from elements, as well as enable new abilities. The bubble shield allowed you to breathe underwater, and bounce like a rubber ball to reach higher places. The fire shield negated all fire damage, and enabled you to blast forward as a big fireball. The electric shield allowed you to double-jump with a burst of energy, as well as attract nearby rings to you like a magnet.
Not to mention that now playing as Tails was worthwhile. You could finally control his flight, and he could swim too! Now nothing is out of reach!
Sonic 3 and Knuckles was the coolest story ever for that universe. Playing as Sonic or Tails was quite the run… Bad enough there are robots and Robotnik around to throw you off, but now you’ve got Knuckles in there screwing you over every corner you turn. But, we have an addition… If you thought Super Sonic was cool, wait til you see his upgraded form. That’s right, upgraded! Collect the Chaos Emeralds in the Sonic 3 storyline, and you’ll suddenly be able to access the hidden sanctuary of the Master Emerald present in the Sonic and Knuckles storyline. Each of your little Chaos Emeralds are consumed, and placed on pedestals around the Master Emerald as shells. You must unlock their power one by one… giving not only these new Super Emeralds power, but the Master Emerald power as well. Now you can tap into even greater powers: Hyper Sonic.
This was by far the coolest idea I’d ever seen. Super Sonic looked cool, but really he was just “invincible sonic with the shoes upgrade”. Hyper Sonic was even faster, and had the ability to exert energy to allow him an extra jump. This got you into more secret areas, and proceed through levels much faster. Hyper Sonic could breathe in water as well. He was pretty much unstoppable.
Oh but I remember the greatest surprise from this story: Tails. In the next issue of Sega visions that I received, it mentioned that this new-found Chaotic power that Sonic obtained also left the door open for the long-awaited arrival of Super Tails. What kind of upgrade did Tails get? Was it simply faster speed and invulnerability like Super Sonic and Super/Hyper Knuckles got?
Hell no. In addition to that, Tails got a swarm of flickie birds that would attack any enemy on screen. Boss fights are now a cakewalk… just stand still and let the birds handle everything. Granted, you had to play through the Sonic 3 storyline and collect the emeralds, which didn’t grant you the ability to go super like it did for Sonic and Knuckles… but the latter part of the game definitely paid off after unlocking all the Super Emeralds…
And hey, now we can play as Knuckles…
What’s his deal? Well, you know what: Knuckles is the hardest character to play as. First of all, he doesn’t jump as high as Sonic nor Tails. Second: every boss fight is based on the same ones from Sonic and Tails, except they’re harder. Suddenly this Robo-Robotnik changes up the game for Knuckles, so if you were expecting the same fights, think again. Every fight is harder. Not only that, but you don’t get to go the same path that Sonic and Tails go… oh no, those areas are usually out of your reach. Instead, you blast through walls to get to where you’re going. They weren’t going to make you play through the same old paths a third time… now you have whole new nooks and crannies to play through. However, despite all these setbacks, they do balance it out with the fact that you don’t have to go through as many levels, and some levels don’t even have a boss fight.
Still, Knuckles is even more badass than Sonic is. Even his comics were more interesting…
All in all, great story, great level design, and great creative ideas.
Speaking of, let’s delve into another area of Sonic lore…
The Animated Series
First, I’ll let the Nostalgia Critic review the 2 I’m most familiar with.
I’ll completely skip over the first series, because it’s just not really worth talking about. Instead, check out the second one. It’s only 2 seasons, so it didn’t take long to get through. Man, how freakin awesome. I would never have guessed that you could expand the Sonic universe so profoundly, but they found a way to do it.
Ok ok, it was really cheesy at times, but as the episodes went on, it got better. It was a post-apocalytpic scene, in which Robotnik had already taken over. It was just this small group of rebels fighting to restore what once was. Some people still found problems with it… Most notable to me was GamesRadar.
GamesRadar is a fucking joke
First of all, GamesRadar, what kind of article site do you have? Why should I have to click “next page” to continue reading your drivel? It’s a fucking HTML page, not a book or a magazine – you don’t need multiple pages for users to flip through. You could, actually, put it all on the same page and allow us to scroll. You’re no longer limited to physical real estate for the content of your articles. Nevermind that, you want to artificially-inflate the hits on your site, don’t you? Fucking sellouts.
But, on the topic of the dubbed “Satam” sonic episodes, GamesRadar had this to say:
“Whoo yeaaaah! Are you ready for some SPEED? How about some CHILI DOGS or MORE UNWANTED CHARACTERS YEEEEEAAAAH???”
Unwanted characters? Look, I don’t know about you, but I don’t think anything could be more boring than continually watching Sonic vs Robotnik all the time. More characters are needed to keep it interesting, you dolt. This is why they don’t keep making cartoons about Tom and Jerry or the Roadrunner.
“This has the balls to take itself seriously, to craft a nonsensical 33rd-century plot about a hedgehog wearing nothing but red shoes.”
You say it took itself seriously like it’s a bad thing. I’m sorry it couldn’t be as pretentious as your Super Mario Supershow, but after that first attempt at a Sonic show, it’s nice to see something that took some actual creative thought and writing. Here’s a question: why is it so “uncool” in your eyes that the show took itself seriously? Oh wait, sorry, there I go again pretending you’re a competent writer…
“Then look at his Freedom Fighter pals – a female lead that also wears nothing but shoes, a walking European stereotype passed off as a fox, a dopey walrus mechanic and, best of all, a half rabbit half robot chick named Bunnie Rabbot.”
 |
 |
 |
|---|
You really seem to have a problem with animals wearing very little clothes… I suppose you have the same problem with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and all the Looney Toons right? What the hell kind of point are you even making here? That anthropomorphic characters should be completely fully-clothed? Or completely naked? Why does this even matter? Is this passe or something? You don’t seem to expand on this point at all, so you’re just trying for that hipster edge of “pfft, I’m too cool for this.” Every description you’ve made so far doesn’t list any reason whatsoever of why it’s a problem. Just a bunch of posturing and false-subtlety passed off as decent writing.
“They never really say how [Bunnie Rabbot] lost her arms and legs, just that Robotnik turned her into one at some point, but general game history says she had to have those limbs removed and then surgically added. A bit much for a Sonic cartoon, no?”
And now you present your inability to do any fucking research. Shit, a brief google search would bring back wiki results from 3 different sites that explain exactly how she’s half-robot. These episodes are tied in with the comics. Also, why does it matter why she’s half robot? They don’t ever really explore it in the show, and it’s not ever a focal point of the plot, so who gives a fuck? The point is that the characters know what happened, and they’re not worried about it right now. Why should you be? Oh I see, this is your attempt at nitpicking a minor detail to showcase your flawless criticism ability. Bang-up job, moron. Way to focus on a detail nobody gives a shit about. “Look at me! I’m a critic! I can nitpick too!”
To answer your question (and debunk your stupid unfounded theory of surgical implants), Bunnie was being roboticized by swat bots until Sonic came to the rescue. He stopped the process while it was halfway through the process, and brought her back to Knothole as a new recruit for the Freedom Fighters.
The only “surgical” part happens much later on in the comics where she has to part ways with her Robotnik version of her arm and legs in favor of custom-built ones, since the Robotnik models were fighting for control over her organic side. She made this hard decision with an unfortunate sacrifice: without Robotnik’s model of arm and legs, she’ll never be able to be de-roboticized, thus forever staying in this altered state. However, in the canon of the story, all of this surgical business happens way after the events in the show, so don’t even think about saying “pfft, then I was right.”
Oh wait, I’m sorry, this is all too serious for you to handle. Here, go watch your DVDs of the Three Stooges smacking one another so your head doesn’t implode with trying to understand talented writing.
What about the other series’s?
I couldn’t even get through the first 5 minutes of Sonic Underground. The opening song was patronizing, the idea behind the story was pitiful, the idea behind the characters trite, and everything presented itself as some kind of twisted satirical joke about every children’s cartoon. This whole series just reeks of spite.
However, there was a following series called Sonic X. Oddly enough, I can sit through that one. Sonic and his friends are transported to the human world of Earth (at least I think it’s Earth). I don’t enjoy the voice actors for most of the characters, but it does do some things right. Every time Knuckles is on screen, it’s absolutely bad-ass.
Knuckles is by far the best character in the show. Cream and Cheese are terrible characters… Annoying voices, and annoying writing. Sonic comes off as pretty much an asshole every chance he gets. “Gee, we need to find the Chaos Emeralds so we can go home, but I think I’ll lay back here on the roof of the house and brood.” Everyone else is diligently watching the news, hoping for another clue. Nevermind, Sonic, it’s not like this is important or anything.
The one major complaint I have about this show is how it follows the Sailor Moon formula too much. Robotnik picks out a new themed robot from a slot machine, the good guys show up, Tails throws Sonic a ring, and he kills the robot with a Super Sonic Spin. Wow… totally different from the evil sorceress summoning a new themed monster, the good guys arriving on the scene, transforming into their superhero costume, and killing the monster with whatever bullshit signature move they use every single time.
Still, as much as I complain about it, I am actually kind of enjoying it. They do actually bring up some interesting situations for the characters, and there is quite a bit of humor. That and Robotnik sounds like Murray from Monkey Island (I know, it’s not the same voice actor, but it does sound similar!) I’m not enjoying it as much as I did the Satam cartoon series, but I will say that after Sonic Underground’s piss-poor delivery, this show is at least watchable.
All Hail Jaleel White
And then of course I have one overarching problem with Sonic’s incarnations ever since Sonic Adventure came out: Jaleel White wasn’t asked to reprise the role of Sonic’s voice. Jaleel White did the best Sonic voice of all time. He really captured the essence of who Sonic was with his portrayal, and every voice actor after him has paled in comparison. In fact, each one after just did worse and worse impressions of Jaleel White’s genius.
Please bring back Jaleel White. Maybe then the recent Sonic games will actually be good. Hey, speaking of recent Sonic games…
The Move to 3D Wasn’t Pretty
Don’t get me wrong… I loved Sonic Adventure. But, I can’t hide it: that game is bugged as hell. So many times I’d slip through the environment, or jump at the wrong time. Sonic’s moving so fast the camera can’t keep up. Actually, to be more specific, in many cases he has to rotate on the x and z axes. Since the camera won’t move with him, you have to move it yourself, and it’s slow. I’ve noticed this in other Sonic games as well. Other times the camera’s positioned in a very cool place if this were a cinematic, but for practicality, it’s impossible to play. I recently played Sonic Generations, and found the same problem on the 3D levels. My other problem was of course playing as classic Sonic, because they changed the jump physics. Now Sonic jumped and fell far too fast for you to be able to react in any reasonable amount of time. In the Sega games, he’d gradually get faster the more he fell or the faster he rolled. In this game, it’s almost instantaneous.
I’d think the best option for a 3D Sonic game would be to try Mirror’s Edge’s approach. Granted, it would need to be 3rd person, but I’d think all the speed and parkour that Sonic could do would more than make up for the problems. That and the camera would stay in the right spot (going first person as needed). And as for jumping, Sonic lives in another universe… It makes sense if his jump physics are unrealistic.
Sonic Comics Are Freakin Awesome!
What’s interesting to note about these comics are how whimsically they start, and how as time goes on, they get dark, serious, and suspenseful. Most of the early ones play out much like a Bugs Bunny cartoon… and soon they take a whole new approach. It gets dark, gritty, real, and awesome all at the same time. Right about the point where Sally Acorn gets her own miniseries, the comics start getting really good. As of this writing, I’m about halfway through all of ‘em.
This makes me think of the show Reboot. It was a CGI cartoon way back when Sonic Satam was on. It started out just as innocent and quirky. Megabyte would say “D’oh! You Mainframe people have foiled me again!” and it would end with one of the good guys winking at the camera and saying a lame one-liner. But as the seasons went on, it got darker and more serious. There near the end, Megabyte (the main antagonist) was no longer your comic book villain: he was a ferocious monster that inspired fear and agony.
I love it when stories get more serious and develop a good story like that, so I highly recommend reading through these Sonic comics. They’re quite addictive :)
In Closing
Sonic is still my hero mascot of all time. I wish they could make a decent game of him today, but for now, I’ll stick with the old stuff. I’ll probably reread these comics and watch the Satam series again. Hell I’ll even play through Sonic Adventure again. I hope the new fan movie for Sonic is true to its form, and makes for a good experience. Til then, I’ve got some rings to collect and robots to bust!