Turning back the hands of time

[jenkins]

So...after Baba's birthday, I realized that I was not the youngest member of this site, but that I was in fact closer to the median age. This train of though made me wonder: How did you guys first find out about Sonic? When I was four, I was living in Cambridge, and my friend's older brother had a Sega Genesis which he would let us play. I distinctly remember Aquatic Ruin, Emerald Hill, Mushroom Hill, and a few others with Knuckles, so we probably only played S3+K and S2.

[Senbei]

I'm game.
Used to play S3&K at a friend's house until we drifted apart. After that I became interested in the Archie comic, which was nearing its fiftieth issue. Since I wasn't allowed to have a console other than a Game Boy, my only connection to Sonic was through the comic, which I really enjoyed. The comic offered me a lot of inspiration as an illustrator. Years later, age twelve or thirteen, I finally acquired a Dreamcast and my interest in Sega Sonic was renewed thanks to SA2, which remains my (ahem) favorite game. Those first few years with my Dreamcast were magic, often thanks to Sonic Team. Eventually, I discovered the internet and the vast Sonic fanbase and ended up here.
A sad ending, I know.

[jenkins]

That's freaky...the Game Boy [Advance] principle was the same at my household until one of my dad's former students gave me a Playstation. But it's short a cable, and I have neither games nor memory cards.

[James McGeachie]

In either 1991/2 I received a master system for Christmas, on which I played Sonic 1 ms/gg and the other ms titles, while playing the Genesis/Megadrive titles at my neighbours and the local youth club, the YMCA, though I always felt like I knew Sonic before that...for whatever reason.

Anyway yeah early 90's, games, Fleetway (uk) Sonic the comic, t-shirts, bed covers, etc.

[Dunjohn]

I was just getting into gaming around the end of the eighties, but nobody locally had anything. I think it was Christmas '89 that one of my friends got a NES and two brothers (not mine) got a Gameboy each. By the time a fourth friend got a Master System during the next year, I was kinda used to slower Mario games and hadn't the slightest interest in playing Sonic. I'd seen TV ads for the Megadrive version. I distinctly remember seeing Sonic whizzing around Spring Yard and deciding that was waaaay to fast and uncontrolable for me. So I played Mickey's Magic Kingdom when it was my turn on the Master System.

I moved away from that town in 1990 and didn't make any friends who had games systems, and I didn't own any myself. I got my fix from demo units in department stores. I remember playing Zelda 1, A Boy and his Blob and some Disney game based on Eurodisney, but every single Megadrive had Sonic 1 playing constantly (this before Sonic 2 released). I don't remember exactly when I went from being a Sonicophobe to an addict, but it would have been during this time. I was a master of Green Hill Zone before I'd ever set foot in Spring Yard. I loved the game so much that I detested Sonic 2 when that came out. they'd tried too hard; Sonic rotated around when he jumped on a spring, there was grass growing on top of the loops, it was SACRILEGE.

I finally got a Megadrive in 1994, While out doing my paper round, I'd seen a guy in his living room casually playing Green Hill Zone without having to wait in line and it just drove me NUTS, so I begged and begged and Santa complied. It came with Sonic 1 & 2 but I still hadn't forgiven the second game and didn't play it much until Sonic 1 was completely worn out. I still have this wierd aversion to it.

[jenkins]

But when you played Sonic 2, what did you think?

As for what James McGeachie said about "knowing" Sonic, it's an interesting idea. Before I moved to Cambridge, I had spent two years in Japan. I was very little, so I don't remember much, but Sonic had already come out, so it was advertised all over the place. I still have an old recording of kids shows which advertises McDonald's Sonic toys celebrating the release of Sonic 3. It starts with these kids playing Sonic 3, and you can hear the ring noises, then Sonic, Knuckles, and Eggman fly out of the screen in little plastic form. You can probably find them on Ebay or something.

[Dunjohn]

There used to be this place in town that had table after table of SNESes and Megadrives and you paid a fiver for an hour. I did give Sonic 2 a go there once, long before I got it myself. I don't remember much, other than getting to the Chemical Plant Zone boss and deciding he was murderously impossible to beat (never noticed the middle part of the floor didn't flip over) and that just killed it even more. All that drowning for nothing.

It's okay, I mean I've passed it and mastered it, but bad first impressions means I just prefer every other 2D Sonic game to it. Even the Advance ones.

I still have theRobotnik from McDonalds and most of the Tails (the thing that makes his tails move is lost). Somewhere. Actually, probably dumped years ago.

[jenkins]

There used to be this place in town that had table after table of SNESes and Megadrives and you paid a fiver for an hour. I did give Sonic 2 a go there once, long before I got it myself. I don't remember much, other than getting to the Chemical Plant Zone boss and deciding he was murderously impossible to beat (never noticed the middle part of the floor didn't flip over) and that just killed it even more. All that drowning for nothing.

It's okay, I mean I've passed it and mastered it, but bad first impressions means I just prefer every other 2D Sonic game to it. Even the Advance ones.

Although few people agree with me, I love Sonic Advance. The next two sucked, but Advance by itself was pretty cool. The arcade thing reminds me of this time I was in Reykjavik, and they had a Sonic 2 Arcade in the kids' section of the airport. I was seven, and I was about to put Sonic behind me for about four years, so I got my last kicks (for a while) there. I remember saying something like, "Hey! Emerald Hill Zone! I know this game! It's Sonic!" to my sister.

[Dunjohn]

I like Sonic Advance 2, except the special stages. Not so hot about Advance 1. Haven't played 3.

[jenkins]

Haven't played 3.

Don't.

[HyperFox]

I got a Genesis at Christmas of the year Sonic 2 was packed nwith the Model 2 Genesis.

It still stands today as the only good game in my legal Genesis collection. (My ROMs are better...) It's also my favorite Sonic game, I guess for nostalgic value...

[Adamis]

I first got the MS2 for Xmas back in 1991, with Castle of Illusion. There were an advert in the box and I saw that "cute blue hedgehog"...I asked my parents and I got it. I played this "Sonic" during days and 2 or 3 months after, I got a MD pack with Sonic 1...I was directly a fan. Then, I was waiting for each Sonic game to come out ^^

[DackAttac]

Age 5, I played Sonic 1 at my friend's house. I didn't like it at first.

After seeing my fascination with my cousin's Game Boy, my parents got me a Game Gear in the Christmas of 1991. Hey, it's color, it's gotta be better, right?

Along with the Donald Duck game that my dad was always trying to beat when I wasn't playing the thing, I also got involved with Sonic 1, Sonic 2 (despite rarely getting past the third or fourth zone, although I've beaten it since) and eventually Sonic Chaos and Triple Trouble. By Sonic Chaos I was a die-hard fan.

I picked up Triple Trouble, Drift 2, Labyrinth, Tails' Adventure, and Blast, but didn't own a Genesis until 1998. I occasionally rented them, back when it was allowed, but my parents didn't want me to stay inside all day glued to a screen. By 1998, we had the internet and that because a lost cause.

Although, after I finished Blast, my Sonic fandom kind of took a hit. Blockbuster stopped renting Genesis, and the Game Gear games just didn't have the same replay value. Also, the Archie comic just took a nosedive around then. I focused on other things, but then I started noticing some reports on "Sonic Adventure". And just when it looked like I might have a normal life, the blue abyss sucked me back in.

The rest is relatively canon. SA1 was good, SA2 was average, Shuffle was frustrating, SH was crap, Shadow was worse, the Advances were halfway decent.

[Senbei]

I feel bad that I never got to experience the old Master System and Genesis days. I did get the computer copy of S3&K with the arrival of the family PC, but that's about as much as I can relate. I also have Sonic 2, Sonic R, Blast, and SonicCD, but to this day I can't get CD to work. It's just about the most annoying thing ever, but at least I can access the three Sonic Boom movies.

Haven't played 3.

Don't.

I'll never understand the hate for Sonic Advance 3. Personally, I thought it was the only Advance game worth playing. I'm not saying it was a quality title, but it did fix a lot of things the other two got wrong, not the least of which was the goddamn awful life system. Otherwise, 3 had more interesting levels, better platforming, and more diverse gameplay.

[Omni Hunter]

For some reason, I swear that Crabmeats were black the first time I seen Sonic the hedgehog at a mates house.

[Light Speed]

When I was 5 back in '91 my dad bought the family a Genesis and it came with Sonic 1. That's pretty much the whole story right there.

[DackAttac]

For some reason, I swear that Crabmeats were black the first time I seen Sonic the hedgehog at a mates house.

Sure. Of course they were.

Racist bastard.

[jenkins]

40,000th post!

About Sonic Advance 3...you might have a point with creative levels. I cannot, however, agree with you on the "better platforming" argument you made. One of the reasons that I didn't like that one was that the platforming was either ridiculous (Cyber Track...Chaos Angel never bothered me too much) or nonexistant (as in most other levels, where the main gimmick was going backwards through what you thought was a wall). Maybe I spoke a little too strongly. Advance 3 has its good aspects, but they're just outnumbered by the bad ones. The music: usually good. The levels: so-so for playability, but had good ideas behind them. The character select: mixed. You can unlock all these awesome and useful moves, but you usually lose something in exchange. For example: Tails+Amy gives Tails amazing flight skills, but now he can't spin jump.

Anyway, this probably won't change anyone's mind, so I'll leave off here, just after saying again how Egg Rocket is the perfect Sonic level. Geez, if you want to talk about platforming...

[Baba O'Reily]

Sonic 3 and Knuckles. I was 3.

[Senbei]

Personally, I enjoyed Cyber Track and Chaos Angel's platforming. But I think the only reason why I prefer them over Egg Rocket is because of, again, the life system. If I want to play Egg Rocket as soon as I turn on my GameBoy, I have to play through the rest of the levels and accumulate lives. In Advance 3, I can just enter one of those mini-games and get a buncha lives immediately, then I can run into every cheap trap in the game and have no worries.
This might seem like a minor concern, but it made it hard for me to enjoy many of the levels in both 1 and 2 when I had to be extra careful not to lose any lives.

[Delphine]

Sonic 3 and Knuckles. I was 3.

You were... three?

Oh my god I feel old.

[jenkins]

Personally, I enjoyed Cyber Track and Chaos Angel's platforming. But I think the only reason why I prefer them over Egg Rocket is because of, again, the life system. If I want to play Egg Rocket as soon as I turn on my GameBoy, I have to play through the rest of the levels and accumulate lives. In Advance 3, I can just enter one of those mini-games and get a buncha lives immediately, then I can run into every cheap trap in the game and have no worries.
This might seem like a minor concern, but it made it hard for me to enjoy many of the levels in both 1 and 2 when I had to be extra careful not to lose any lives.

Ohhh...gotcha. I didn't know what you meant at first by "life system;" I sort of assumed you were referring to how you could, unlike in the classics, have a zero for your lives, and I was thinking "but Advance 3 had that too..."

Anyhoo, one of the things which I liked so much about Egg Rocket was the elitist level design. Harking back to the topic of this forum, after my days playing Sonic in Cambridge, I went to England to visit my grandparents for a year and a half, and I had all but forgotten about Sonic when I returned. After about a year or two of normality, I got the Sonic CD collection for my computer, and go into Sonic 3, failing utterly to recognize that I had played it before. But then, that computer crashed, so I was again without Sonic for about two years. Finally, out of sheer luck, my sister invited a friend over, and she brought a Game Boy Advance. This was the first time I had seen one, and she only brought one game: Sonic Advance. I played some of it and was stuck on Egg Rocket, but I kept playing it and playing it because of how cool it was, and now I can start as Amy and beat the whole level with one life. God I love that level.

Actually, this might be the cause of my deep-seated love of Egg Rocket. It was the zone which made me love Sonic again. Until then, I had been an occasional Sonic player who liked the nifty worlds, but after then, I was a true Sonic junkie.

[Plorpus III]

They had Sonic 1 at the place where I got allergy shots at age 3. I always got to the end of GHZ act two or the beginning of act 3, but then i always died. I got to the boss once, but I got my ass handed to me.
I also played Sonic 2 at a mall and got to the end of Emerald Hill. I think I beat the boss, but it reset. The next year I was in Florida for my cousin's (an astronaut) launch. They were holding a party at some airforce base, and it was really, really, boring. Thankfully, one of my relatives, one year older than me, had brought Sonic 2 for Gamegear. I was in love. I mean, I couldn't get past the boss or anything, but I still can't. Later that year, I got a Gamegear, along with Sonic 2.
My parents would often go shopping at a mall where they had a sort of recreation center-ish place called Incredible Universe. Basically, it was a bunch of Genisii and SNESes that you kid would play while you went out and did stuff. I just played Sonic 3 the whole time. Every single time, I would play it for hours.
I finally got a Genesis on Christmas of '94, with Sonic 2, Sonic 3, and Sonic and Knuckles. From then on, I got every Sega console I could, minus Nomad and 32x (I played Chaotix at Best Buy once though), and every Sonic game I could find.
In early '99, Toys 'R' Us had a demo of Sonic Adventure. Ever since the Saturn, I had been hoping for a true 3D Sonic game. This was it. I was in love. When the Dreamcast was available for rent at Holywood video, I would rent it as much as my parents would let me. There weren't any VMUs, so I just left it on for days at a time. I still have the manual for SA: the Trial that I forgot to return.
To this day, SA is my favorite sonic game, along with Sonic 3K and maybe Sonic 2. I hope that the Next Gen Sonic is a true sequel to SA, with adventure fields and everything.

Come to thing of it I should have stopped typing after my Sonic 1 story.
Huh.

[Double-S-]

I remember that Hollywood Video promo. That was awesome. We got all the way to Super Sonic, but then we decided to stop so we'd have something new for when we got the real game.