This missed the June 23rd date, I know. I was working and crying about F-ZERO being dead. Despite not being on time, I wanted to have a write up on such a monumental anniversary.
I did not welcome Sonic with open arms. No, my arms were quite hostile. Those 16-bit Genesis/SNES wars you hear about? Well I took part of them! In the beginning, anyway. And they were glorious! OK, really all it was was kids on playgrounds arguing over how the SNES or the Genesis was better and how Sonic was so cool and fast and Mario was slow and for kids.
My initial dislike for the world's most famous hedgehog came about from SEGA of America's aggressive marketing. They never missed a moment to slam Nintendo or their plumber mascot. To me, Sonic's very existence threatened Mario's so I had to dislike him. That all changed when I went over to Justin's house after Sunday school. Seeing the game in action for more than 30 seconds was life changing to my little 10 year old brain. Sonic was everything SEGA said he was, fast, heroic and yes, cool. From that day on, I found out that it was possible to like Mario AND Sonic at the same time.
Many would like to say that Sonic's best days have long passed him by. At the risk of coming off as some kind of Sonic apologist, I don't believe every game from the 16-bit era was 100% gold. In fact, I'm pretty vocal at expressing my distaste that some of those games before the Dreamcast and modern era are quite flawed (glaring at you, Sonic CD) and plenty of fans and critics alike are quick to dismiss those flaws or flat out ignore them. I also don't think every 3D Sonic outside of Colors is tripe that ruined the series. Yeah, there are some major stinkers in Sonic's catalog but to say that whole series should be taken out behind the barn and shot is pure rubbish. Besides if that happened, we wouldn't have gotten 2017's excellent retro-inspired Sonic Mania. Sure, Sonic may be past his prime but if we've learned anything from Sonic's long career it is that he's one hedgehog that you shouldn't think is completely out of the game.
Yup, Sonic is 30. As a guy that is just days away from exiting the 30s and joining the 40 club, that makes me feel a bit old. But he isn't too far behind me in age and he and his buddies did have a hand in helping make my childhood cool.
I am very much stoked that one of my favorite Sonic games, Sonic Colors is coming back in HD via Sonic Colors Ultimate. I'm also super jazzed that Sonic 3 & Knuckles is going to be included in next year's Sonic Origins collection. Did SEGA finally get the music mess with that game sorted out? Man, I hope so because I will go ballistic to play my favorite Sonic game on the Switch. Yes, that is still my favorite Sonic game ever, sorry Sonic Mania fans.
As for Sonic's 2022 game? I'm curious to see how that game turns out but at the same time, I can see why some would be preparing for the worst, given Sonic's history, but like I said a few paragraphs upward, he's one unpredictable rodent.
Whatever the future holds for our spiky blue friend, you can count on one thing: no matter how many times he falls, he gets back up and keeps running. And if that isn't a valuable lesson from a video game mascot, I don't know what is.
No comments:
Post a Comment