Sonic the Hedgehog, This Is Your Life

It all began 20 years ago, when a blue Erinaceus europaeus raced out of our game consoles and into our hearts in the initiatory Audible the Hedgehog game. Today we celebrate Sonic's 20th natal day with a look back at his long and illustrious–though somewhat confusing–career.

As I've grown up, Sonic has grown up with me, so I welcome to accept a moment to address you directly, Sonic the Hedgehog, and to say just what you've meant to me.

The Beginning: 1991-1997

Sonic the Hedgehog and his two best friends Tails and Knuckles. — Sonic the Porcupine and his 2 best friends, Dress suit and Knuckles.

Everything was so simple in the youth. It was just you, running rid and destroying robots to set free the animals that had been trapped inside them by the pestiferous Dr. Robotnik. You know, normal Erinaceus europeaeus stuff. The fast, amusive pace of your gamy, on with the great artwork and sound design, won you millions of fans from the identical start and assign you right functioning there with the greats wish Mario and Pac-Man.

Things stayed good for a few old age. In 1992 you met your best friend Miles "Tails" Powers, a superfast slyboots with two tails. (Do you live most a thermonuclear-waste dump, by the bye?) In 1994, you took your first steps into 3D in the bonus levels of Hearable the Porcupine 3, and you met your best frenemy Knucks the Echidna in the game Sonic and Knuckles.

Back then everybody seemed to love you; even a fated famed plumber couldn't break your step. Every time Sega put forbidden new hardware–even ill-omened missteps like the expensive Sega CD accessory, which added a CD drive and $300 to the cost of the Sega Genesis–you were there, and you were awesome.

The 3D Years: 1998-2002

And so your adventures started taking on an added proportion. The maiden signs of what was to come showed up in 1998's Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast. You personally managed the transition to 3D very swell, only gamers were confused by Sega's choice to devote large amounts of time in a game called "Sonic Take a chance" to adventuring with characters not called Sonic the Hedgehog. Instead players took along the role of Amy Rose, your biggest fan and a pink hedgehog with an undetermined giant mallet. OR Fully grown the Kat, who let players follow the exciting exploits of a large feline that really liked fishing.

Audible, things were start to get rattling confusing. You were moving away from what made us have a go at it you.

Out of Control: 2003-2010

This is the time the drugs kicked in. Or so we assume, anyway, because things got genuinely weird. Your unimpaired life seemed every bit if it were going at about 1000 miles per hour, and not in the cool, good way that was usually the eccentric. It was touching in a bad, motion-sickness kind of elbow room. You started ditching your old friends and hanging out with new faces: diabolic, sexy bat precious stone thieves, robot highjack captains. But these pals, too, were rapidly unwanted in the search for a quick hit.

Sonic and his parents? — Sonic the Hedgehog, shown hither with his robotic Church Father and his mother's horrendous wig.

By my count you've now asterisked in four different cartoon shows, your own long-running comic book, and somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 separate Sonic games. Entirely of these projects have their own overlapping just reciprocally exclusive regurgitate of characters, including three separate black versions of you, two separate origin stories for your mom–one of whom looks disturbingly like you in pull–and a clock-traveling silver hedgehog from the upcoming with psychic powers. I really, really wish I were fashioning some of this dormy.

The rotating cast, now well into the triple digits, has gotten totally out of control. Recently, Shadow the Hedgehog, an edgy version of you with guns, even got his own starring hit the sack a game.

A Return to Form: 2020

"Modern Sonic" and "Classic Sonic" — He has changed so a good deal over the years.

These days everybody seems to follow ready and waiting for your gargantuan comeback, and the folks at Sega are apparently trying to obligate. In preparation for your twentieth-birthday celebration, Sega has been hyping Sonic Generations, a new title that combines a ultramodern Sonic game with the option to child's play as "Classic Sonic," with the 2D gameplay that made you famous. Time will tell if this is the biz that at last brings back the Sonic we love–just even if things never go rearwards to the way they were, we'll always own the good times. Happy Natal day, Hearable the Porcupine.