Sonic the Hedgehog is (to me) the greatest video-game hero of all time! Even since he made his grand debut in 1991, he was easily recognized by millions and was the number one rival of Nintendo's trademark hero, Mario. And ever since, I just couldn't help but love him and any game he appeared in. Let me tell you about the how he played an important role in my life over the years..

I was seven years old when I first played a Sonic game. In 1993, I was at the house of a friend of my mom's and their son let me play his Sega Genesis. The first game I tried on it was "Sonic The Hedgehog", and after playing it, I was hooked! It was really easy to play; Sonic had to reach the end of each stage while collecting rings and destroying robots that had small animals inside them. At the end of each third Act, Sonic fought his arch-enemy, Dr. Robotnik (called Dr. Eggman to this day). He also had to collect powerful gems called "Chaos Emeralds" before Robotnik did in order to beat most of the games properly. Every time I hear the Green Hill Zone level theme play, I immediately think back to when I first played this game...

Shortly after, I saw a couple pages of the Sonic comic-book series by Archie Comics. When I first read it, it seemed good at first; there was even a TV show based on the comics as well. I then realized that there was already a TV show based on the games called "Adventures Of Sonic The Hedgehog" and I enjoyed this show more than I did the other one, even though both cartoons had Jaleel White (known for playing Steve Urkel from "Family Matters") as the voice of the Blue Blur, which I thought was cool, especially since I know who he is.

In 1994, I played "Sonic Spinball" on a Sega Genesis that I got from a rental store. It was really simple to play because it was a pinball game with a bit of platforming involved.

A few weeks later, I rented "Sonic The Hedgehog 3", and I really enjoyed it from the start, even though I did poorly at the bonus stages at first. It was the first game I played where you get to play as Sonic's best friend, Tails; it was also the game that had the debut of Knuckles the Echidna, who at first was an enemy of Sonic and Tails until we found out he was duped by Dr. Eggman (He was like that in "Sonic Triple Trouble" on the Game Gear as well, which came out before "Sonic & Knuckles").

I kept the Sega Genesis until it was taken back. Luckily, another friend of my mom's had a Sega Game Gear and he let me play it. One of the games he had with it was "Sonic The Hedgehog 2", and it was hard yet fun to play. I thought it was the same one on Sega Genesis, even though I've never really played it before.

In 1996, after I moved to a new house, I stayed at one of my friend's house and I finally had a chance to play the Sega Genesis version of "Sonic The Hedgehog 2". I really enjoyed that more than I did the Game Gear version, and it was the first Sonic game that I knew how to collect the Chaos Emeralds in.

In 1998, after Christmas was over, I bought myself a Sega Genesis and a couple of Sonic games with it as well. One of the games I bought was "Sonic Classics", which contained the first two Sonic games on the Genesis and a puzzle game called "Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine", which was very fun and addictive; the other game I bought was "Sonic The Hedgehog 3". Shortly after, I rented another Sonic game called "Sonic 3-D Blast" and it is really fun to play (even though it wasn't really made by the people who made the other Sonic games). I kept my Sega Genesis until I got a Nintendo 64 in 2001 (Luckily for me, I was able to buy another one at a yard sale in the late summer of 2007).

Ever since I got rid of my first Genesis, I hardly paid anymore attention to Sonic, even after seeing a new cartoon called "Sonic Underground", which had absolutely nothing to do with the games.


Before that time, in 1999, my cousin got a Sega Dreamcast for Christmas and it came with a demo disk that had the first level of a game called "Sonic Adventure". After trying it out, I thought Sonic was even cooler than he was before (or in this case, AS cool as he was before). In "Sonic Adventure", all the characters looked a lot cooler and there were plenty of new characters as well, including Big the Cat (whom I thought was cool because of the way he talked). It was also that game that I was introduced to Amy Rose, a cute pink hedgehog who's madly in love with Sonic ever since she debuted in the game "Sonic CD" (which I never played until later in my life). Around that time, Sega was almost out of business and the only way they could stay in business was to make games for other systems, including the Nintendo Gamecube.

One day, shortly after my birthday in 2002, I found and bought a pack of Sonic games for the PC. It contained: "Sonic & Knuckles Collection", "Sega Smash Pack 2", "Sonic CD", and "Sonic R". They were all very fun to play (except for the PC version of "Sonic CD", because it messed up the computer when you had to adjust the color setting when playing it). "Sonic & Knuckles Collection" contained three Sonic games on the Sega Genesis ("Sonic The Hedgehog 3", "Sonic & Knuckles", and "Sonic 3 & Knuckles"), "Sega Smash Pack 2" consisted of multiple games on the Sega Genesis to play ("Vectorman 2", "Sonic The Hedgehog 2", "Comix Zone", "Kid Chameleon", "Shining Force", "Super Hang-On", and "Flicky"), and "Sonic R" was a perfect port of the Sega Saturn game (I loved this game the most because of the music; of all my life, I've hardly ever played a game with actual singing heard).

For Christmas that year, I got a Nintendo Gamecube (I wanted one after "Sonic Mega Collection" was released, which was a collection of all the Sonic games on the Sega Genesis). I didn't get any games with it, so I rented some after I bought my first game for it. "Sonic Adventure 2 Battle" was one of the games I rented and I had a blast playing it. Not counting "Sonic Adventure 2" on the Sega Dreamcast, It had the debut of characters like Shadow the Hedgehog and Rouge the Bat, and the series then became a bit more serious than it did before, which I thought was cool. In the summer of 2003, I had my money saved up and I got the game myself.

Shortly after that, there was a new TV show called "Sonic X" that came on, and I enjoyed every minute of it ever since I saw the first episode. The show may not have had the original voice actors from the games, but I thought the actors who played them in the show really good. The show itself was based on the games a lot better that the other shows before it, and that's why I liked it in the first place.

I then bought "Sonic Advance 2" on the Game Boy Advance when I got my first paycheck from my first job around that time as well. It's a really great game, and it had the debut of Cream the Rabbit and her Chao, Cheese.

After New Year's Day passed, I bought a copy of "Sonic Adventure DX" on the Nintendo Gamecube and it was mainly a so-so remake of "Sonic Adventure" on the Sega Dreamcast. One thing that made it special, however, were the Game Gear games you could unlock as you played through the game, which I missed out on over the years (except for "Sonic Drift" and "Tails' Sky Patrol", which were two Sonic games that were never released in the US back then). Afterwards, I kept on buying every other Sonic game for every system I own that came out, including "Sonic Heroes" and "Sonic Rush".

Other than that, every other game Sonic and friends were in is really fun to play, no matter what anyone says about them. Sonic has always been a great video-game hero to me, and that's why I'll alway love him.