Popular Nostalgia

Sonic the hedgehog launched the Sega Megadrive (aka the Sega Genesis in the states) into everyone’s living room. At least mine anyway.

In the early 90s as a child you were either a NES or a Megadrive family. In my house, we got the Megadrive and must have spent hundreds of hours playing on Sonic the Hedgehog. Literally.

Sonic soon became a global ‘franchise’ spawning numerous sequels, a television cartoon, and a whole host of other Sonic toys and games sprang up, though the original game is still the best!

The cheats

I can still remember the ‘cheats’ – up, down, left, right, a + start – and the remarkably similar, yet completely different up+c, down+c, left+c, right+c, a + start. In fact, I heard recently that there is now a band named upC, downC, leftC, rightC. Kudos to whoever came up with that one!

Sonic Vs Mario & Luigi

In my view, the battle between the Super Mario Brothers and Sonic was won by the hedgehog – despite Nintendo’s valiant attempts, plumbing just isn’t as cool as having spines.

Best Level – The Labyrinth

The Labyrinth was my favourite level. I enjoyed letting Sonic get to the stage where he was nearly drowning, then giving him an air bubble to replenish his oxygen levels at the last minute. This game-plan often had disastrous consequences, as air bubbles were fickle creatures, though the noise it made when you found one was so satisfying. Genius.

Here is a video of the final boss: