On this day 35 years ago, the most famous character of the Japanese company SEGA – the fast hedgehog Sonic the Hedgehog – appeared.
In the late eighties, consoles sold mascots. Nintendo had Mario, Namco had Pac-Man, and Sega had… Alex Kidd. Does anyone remember the unfortunate Alex? Probably not, but luckily according to Seg, on this day in 1991, a character took off and has remained unstoppable to this day.
It was a blue hedgehog Sonic the Hedgehogwho got his game for the then Sega Mega Drive console. During the development of the game, it was not planned from the very beginning that Sonic would be a hedgehog. Other fast animals were also considered squirrel, rabbit or pasture, but in the end the hedgehog idea prevailed.
During the development of the game, it was not planned from the very beginning that Sonic would be a hedgehog.
The character was also not immediately blue, but was imagined as such turquoise hedgehog, but they had to paint it a darker color to make it stand out better among the surroundings. The name Sonic also came later in development – at first the character was called Mr. Hedgehog. Sonic’s main antagonist, Dr. Ivo Robotnik was actually designed before the game’s protagonist had an appearance.
Sonic the Hedgehog was internally called “Defeat Mario” and seven people worked on the game. Their desire to surpass Nintendo’s hit was huge, so much so that they have been developing Sonic for months worked 19 hours a day. The development team led by Yuji Naka was especially proud to have created the fastest character in the world of video games. But the real challenge was to design a fast-paced game where players wouldn’t get lost. The levels for Sonic were therefore redesigned several times until the team was satisfied with them.
Sonic the Hedgehog was internally called “Defeat Mario”.
Sonic the Hedgehog in its final version was a unique 2D platformer in which the title hedgehog ran up and down colorful worlds, hitting robots and collecting golden rings. The game had six zones, each with three chapters, culminating in a final showdown with the Doctor IV Workers.
Although Sonic did not cause the revolution that Mario did in his time, his game was widely praised. The visual side of Sonic stood out the most, followed by fast and simple gameplay and excellent level design. The news that Sega finally had an answer to Mario spread quickly and the game reached one million copies sold in 1991, and the very next year Sonic helped Sega earn its first billion dollars from the sale of Mega Drive consoles. Sonic on the Mega Drive console ultimately sold in more than 15 million copies.
Sonic on the Mega Drive console ultimately sold more than 15 million copies.
In the nineties, Sonic was exclusive to Sega’s consoles helped overtake Nintendo during 1991 and 1992, but later it came to life on almost all other platforms, from PC, Android and even to the unimaginable consoles of the competition from Nintendo. Before Sonic appeared on Nintendo, there were pirated versions where the character was called Somari.
Sonic has become a huge franchise in the last 35 years. It had several successful sequels, although the speed at which new games were released often did not work in its favor. In the last 20 years, we remember only a few good titles, including Sonic Mania, which was developed by Sonic fans, not its owners.
In 2020, Sonic got his own film adaptation. The appearance of the film Sonic initially resulted in a lot of fan displeasure, but after the redesign, things fell into place and we got a surprisingly solid film that achieved a notable result, so it got two sequels in 2022 that were equally successful. The fourth Sonic movie is planned for this winter.