Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog (Japanese:ソニック・ザ・ヘッジホッグ, Romaji: Sonikku za hejjihoggu) is the flagship character and mascot for the video game / arcade game (and formerly home game console) company Sega, which has released a series of video games in which he either stars or plays a role. Sonic was competing head-to-head with Nintendo's mascot Mario for over a decade until Sega went out of the home console market. He now lives on various Nintendo systems and other consoles.
Sonic replaced Alex Kidd, who was Sega's mascot prior to 1990. Naoto Oshima designed the character while Yuji Naka was the main programmer. He would later become head of the Sonic Team division. He was also used as the mascot of Sega's Blast Processing, a feature of the Sega Genesis which supposedly allowed Genesis games to draw polygons faster.
Sonic is a blue, 15 year old hedgehog who lives on the planet Earth, or Mobius in various American sources which is simply the name of Earth in the future. He has the ability to run at supersonic speeds, hence his name.
He is always running all over the world, rarely stopping for anything. He is carefree and relaxed; however, he is also very intolerant of injustice, and he will do anything he can to help those in need. He has also got a quick wit, short temper, and a fairly large ego.
His blue pigmentation was explained in an issue of gaming magazine Gamepro as being the result of getting caught in an explosion involving cobalt, but this is probably not canonical. There is an alternative explanation in Stay Sonic: Official Sega Handbook, a book about Sonic the Hedgehog written by Mike Pattenden. At some point it was divulged (probably from an American source) that Sonic enjoys eating chili dogs.
The premise of the games revolves around Doctor Eggman (Doctor Ivo Robotnik in the earlier releases in North America and Europe) trying to take over the world by turning the animals into robots called Badniks. Sonic is charged with saving them. In later games he is joined by Tails (Miles "Tails" Prower, Amy Rose, Knuckles the Echidna, Cream the Rabbit and a host of other characters. Sonic must collect Golden Rings to protect himself from the Badniks, and he ultimately must collect the Chaos Emeralds on the Emerald Isle in order to become his most powerful form, Super Sonic. However, Sonic's quest does not necessitate collecting the Emeralds himself; he must only prevent Robotnik from collecting them and dooming the world with their power.
Sonic is a poor swimmer, and will drown in water, even as Super Sonic. As Hyper Sonic in Sonic & Knuckles;, he can stay alive in water.
In SatAM Sonic's love interest is Princess Sally Acorn; in the video games Amy Rose thinks she is Sonic's girlfriend (Sonic, however, is quite repelled by Amy's constant advances but in the modern day Sonic TV show Sonic X, there is a bit more of a mutual vibe between Sonic and Amy); Breezie hedgehog in Adventures of Sonic the hedgehog cartoon; and both Sally Acorn and Mina Mongoose in Sonic's Archie comics.
Sonic has faced several other adversaries in the games, such as Metal Sonic (Mecha Sonic), Fang the Sniper (Nack the Weasel in America), Shadow the Hedgehog, and Rouge the Bat. Nothing the leader of Sonic Heroes's Team Sonic can't handle.
Interestingly, one of a class of genes involved in fruit fly embryonic development, called hedgehog genes after the name given to the first member of this class discovered, has been named "sonic hedgehog" after this character.
The music of the first two Sonic the Hedgehog games on the Megadrive and Genesis was composed by the Japanese band Dreams Come True.
Sonic is also incredibly popular with the fangaming community, with possibly more fanmade games than any other video game star.
| Table of contents |
|
2 Pirated games which are not from above starring Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Public domain 4 Television series 5 Comic books 6 External Links |
Games that Sonic characters have cameoed in
Pirated games which are not from above starring Sonic the Hedgehog
Public domain
Television series
Comic books
Sonic manga and fanmade Doujinshi have also been released in Japan.
External Links