Sonic the Hedgehog (1991 video game)

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) No issues specified. Please specify issues, or remove this template. (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Sonic the Hedgehog (ソニック・ザ・ヘッジホッグ) is a platform game developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega for the Mega Drive/Genesis system. It is the inaugural game in Sega's flagship Sonic the Hedgehog video game series, and was the first title developed by Sonic Team. The game was released in 1991 in North America, Europe, and Japan. It is sometimes^[when?] retroactively referred to as Sonic the Hedgehog 1 or Sonic 1 to differentiate it from both its main character and sequels in the same series.^{[citation needed]}

In the game, Sonic has to prevent Dr. Robotnik from collecting the six Chaos Emeralds in an attempt to rule South Island. The player controls Sonic as he traverses six zones, each of which is split into three "acts". At the end of the third act of each zone, the player faces Dr. Robotnik in one of his vehicles.

The gameplay centers around Sonic's ability to run, jump, and roll at high speeds. Levels include springs, slopes, high falls and loop-de-loops. Hazards the player experiences include a wide variety of "badniks" — animals trapped inside mechanical bodies, which are released the moment the player hits them with an attack. Each badnik takes one hit to destroy, but their movements and methods of attack vary greatly over the course of the game. The player must also avoid rows of sharp spikes, bottomless pits, and elaborate death traps. There is also the threat of drowning, as the player can only survive approximately 30 seconds underwater (locating air bubbles can extend this).

Scattered around each level map are numerous gold rings, which became a signature item of the Sonic series. Collecting 100 rings rewards the player with an extra life. Rings act as a layer of protection against hazards — if Sonic possesses at least one ring, an enemy attack will not kill him instantly but will cause his rings to scatter outwards and bounce away from him. Shields and invincibility can also be collected in order to provide additional layers of protection — however, they do not prevent the player losing a life if Sonic is crushed (by a trap or between a wall and a moving platform), drowned, falls into a pit, or goes over each act's ten-minute time limit.

Progression through the game is aided by lamp posts that act as checkpoints. When Sonic passes a lamp post, the game will resume from that point when the player loses a life. In the Japanese version, if a checkpoint is activated and a life is lost as a result of running out of time, the time at the checkpoint will reset to 0:00.

If the player reaches the end of Act 1 or Act 2 of each zone with at least 50 rings, a giant ring will appear in the air near the goal post. If Sonic manages to jump into the ring, he will instantly be teleported to a "Special Stage", consisting of a 360° rotating maze set against a surreal, psychadelic backdrop of morphing birds and fish. Sonic is permanently curled up in his rolling animation, and bounces off the bumpers and walls of the stage like a pinball (the concept of placing Sonic in the role of a pinball became a recurring element of the series, particularly in the game Sonic Spinball). The Special Stages were considered a major technical achievement for the Mega Drive hardware.^[2]

The Special Stages contain numerous rings (collecting 50 rings in a Special Stage gives the player an extra continue, worth 3 lives). However, the main goals of the bonus levels are the Chaos Emeralds — each of the six different Special Stages contains one, and the player must collect all of them to view the game's "good" end sequence.

Touching a "goal post" will end the Special Stage and take the player to the next act without allowing them to acquire the Chaos Emerald.

Development for Sonic the Hedgehog began in April 1990, after Sega ordered its AM-8 team to develop a game featuring a mascot for the company. After choosing a hedgehog as the main character, the 5-person group changed its name to Sonic Team and started working on Sonic the Hedgehog. The main minds behind the game were character designer Naoto Ohshima, game programmer Yuji Naka and designer Hirokazu Yasuhara.^[3]

The game was originally intended to feature a sound test menu, with animated graphics based around Sonic break-dancing to the music of a "Sonic Band"^[4] consisting of Sharps Chicken (guitar), Max Monkey, (guitar), Mach Rabbit (drums), and Vector the Crocodile (keyboard/synth); Vector was later re-designed and re-used for the games Knuckles' Chaotix and Sonic Heroes. The development schedule meant that the feature had to be scrapped, and Yuji Naka decided to replace the test with the "SEGA!" chant used in TV advertisements, which took up 1/8 of the 4-megabit cartridge.^[4] A text-only sound test option remained in the final game's level select cheat menu.

This is the only Mega Drive/Genesis Sonic game made entirely in Japan. Although Sonic the Hedgehog CD was made in Japan as well, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, and Sonic & Knuckles were produced in North America at Sega Technical Institute, albeit with almost exclusively Japanese staff members. Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball, however, was produced almost entirely by Americans, the only Sonic game to date to do so. Sonic 3D featured Japanese staff, but much of the work was done by the UK-based video game company Traveller's Tales, who also produced Sonic R.

Sonic the Hedgehog uses the on-board Zilog Z80 and Yamaha YM2612 synthesizer sound chip to produce a variety of stereo sound effects and music. The game has been praised for its dynamic music, composed by Masato Nakamura, a member of the popular J-Pop band, Dreams Come True.

Akira Watanabe, the illustrator of the character art, said that his sole goal was to depict the characters as "colorful" and to use clear cutting lines and gradation to "finish them neatly."^[5]

Watanabe said that the developers asked him to create a package design "similar to pop art." Watanabe aimed to create the design "without being particular to conventional packages." Watanabe intended to create an "original, stylish pop game package."^[5]

The first version, released in North America and Europe, lacked some graphical enhancements that were added to the Japanese release a month later. The Japanese version included clouds that moved independently of the scrolling background (even when the main character stands still) in the Green Hill Zone and two water graphical effects in the Labyrinth Zone, which consisted of a rippling effect on the foreground and a swirling effect on the background. This effect was only applied to the areas that were under the water line. Also in the Japanese version, all levels of the game had many more layers of parallax scrolling in their backgrounds.

The first version also gave the player an enormous 250,000 point bonus if a stage was cleared in less than 30 seconds. Subsequent revisions cut the bonus down to 50,000.^{[citation needed]}

The later Japanese version 2.0 fixed the "spike bug" (a bug in which Sonic would instantly die if he "bounced" from one set of spikes to another due to him not gaining temporary invincibility until his feet touched the ground). Also fixed in both Japanese versions is the level select cheat, which listed the game's levels in an erroneous order.

In addition to this, due to differences between standard PAL and NTSC refresh rates (50 Hz and 60 Hz respectively), the European version of the game plays at about 83% speed of the NTSC version,^[6] and the music is also slowed down by the same amount. Subsequent PAL Mega Drive games and some of Sonic 1's re-releases (e.g. Sonic Jam) retained the NTSC versions' correct music speed, although the gameplay remained slower.

Sonic the Hedgehog is a video game that was released for the Sega Master System and the Game Gear. Though based on the Mega Drive game of the same name, it is a distinct game, with different level designs, and three of the six zones (worlds) based on original themes.^[7] The Sega Master System version was the final title for the console released in the USA and is now on the Wii Virtual Console, released in North America on August 4, 2008^[8] and in Europe on September 19, 2008. The Game Gear version has appeared with other titles on Sonic Adventure DX for GameCube and PC and Sonic Mega Collection Plus for PlayStation 2, Xbox, and PC. A conversion for Palm Tungsten handhelds was also released in 2003 by Sega Mobile.^{[citation needed]}

A new version of the game, which was entitled Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis, was released for the Game Boy Advance in November 2006 as part of the celebrations of the original game's 15th anniversary. The game is a remake of the original game as opposed to a port. It includes a new save feature and a special "Anniversary Mode" featuring the Spin-Dash move that was added in later games. In addition, the view is slightly zoomed in and adapted for the GBA's widescreen aspect ratio, and the level select and debug codes have been left out, the former due to the fact that there is already a zone select screen.^[9] The reception was negative, as many reviewers criticized the game for its slow frame rate, music, and glitches—most called the game "unplayable."

Compilations that include the game are Sonic Compilation (1995) and Genesis 6-Pak (1996) for the Sega Genesis; Sonic Jam (1997) for the Sega Saturn; Sega Smash Pack (1999) for the Sega Dreamcast; Sonic Mega Collection (2002) for the GameCube; Sonic Mega Collection Plus (2004) for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC, SEGA Mega Drive Collection PSP and Sega Genesis Collection (2006) for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable, and Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Sonic Jam features four different modes of playing Sonic the Hedgehog: "original", identical to initial release; "medium", which affects the layout of rings and hazards; "time attack", which uses the "medium" level maps and allows players to save their record times to 1/100 second; and "easy", which removes certain Acts entirely from the game. In addition, an option setting alters can alter the game to allow the use of the Spin-Dash, a move that did not debut until Sonic 2 the following year. The spike bug from earlier versions of Sonic the Hedgehog can be triggered if Spin Dash is turned off.

Sonic Mega Collection and Mega Collection Plus feature all three revisions of the game. The GameCube PAL edition of Mega Collection for the GameCube supports a 60 Hz option, which not only allows the game to be played full-screen and at its original speed, but also allows either the US or Japanese version 2.0 iterations to be played via a cheat code (the first Japanese version is the default). If the 50 Hz option is selected, these cheat codes do not work and only the PAL edition of the game can be played.^[10]

Both the US and European releases of Sega Genesis Collection contain the US version of Sonic the Hedgehog.

In 2004, Sega released Sonic the Hedgehog on the PlayStation Store for the PlayStation Portable and subsequently for PlayStation 3. 2006 saw Sonic the Hedgehog available for Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console service from its launch,^[11] and in 2007 it entered Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade under the title Sonic the Hedgehog Arcade.^[12] The XLA version does not allow the use of cheats to prevent undue earning of Achievements. It also has options for graphic smoothing, saving and loading current progress in-game and to resize the gameplay window.

The game was also present on the Danger Hiptop's Sidekick 3, Real Arcade^{[citation needed]} and GameTap^[13].

In 2007 the game was made available on the iTunes store as a game for the iPod nano with video, the iPod classic, and iPod with video.^{[citation needed]} Sonic the Hedgehog appeared as part of Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 alongside many of the series subsequent games.

In early 2009, Sega announced that the game would be available for Apple's iPhone OS in the Spring.^[14]

Sonic the Hedgehog greatly increased the popularity of the Genesis in North America. After it was released, it eventually replaced Altered Beast as the game bundled with the console. In large part due to the popularity of this game, the Genesis outsold the Super Nintendo nearly 2 to 1 during the 1991 holiday season. This success led to Sega overtaking Nintendo in January 1992 with control of 55% of the 16-bit console market, making it the first time Nintendo was not the console leader since December 1985.^[15] The game featured many novel elements which contributed to its popularity and helped to promote the uptake of 16-bit consoles. The game is widely considered to be one of the greatest games of all time, placing #63 on IGN's 2007 list.^{[citation needed]}

Sonic the Hedgehog added the element of speed to the standard platform formula and introduced other unique elements as well, such as the loops, springboards, high-speed devices, and the rings now permanently associated with the game series.

The game was both a critical and commercial success. As of November 19, 2007, the game has sold 4 million copies^[16], the second-highest amount for a Genesis game, behind Sonic 2, which has sold 6 million copies.^[17]

• Sonic Central Official American website
• Sonic Channel Official Japanese website
• Sonic City Official Europe website
• Sonic the Hedgehog at MobyGames
• Template:Sonic Retro