Sonic debuted on the
Sega Master System and
Game Gear in an 8-bit conversion of his premiere game. Aside from having scaled down graphics and sounds, this version of the game had fewer levels and easier objectives. The famed
Chaos Emeralds, for example, were not hidden away in a bonus stage but where sitting out in the open in the main levels themselves. Sonic's only weapon was his
spin jump and
rings were plentiful. A skilled player could rack up nine lives before the end of the third zone.
Speaking of zones, each of the following zones is divided into three acts (with the third act being a boss act):
- Green Hill
- Bridge
- Jungle
- Labryinth
- Scrap Brain
- Sky Base
The Game Gear version of this title is readily available at online auctions and used game shops (as well as emulators if you can find the ROM), but the Master System version is harder to come by in terms of overall searching, but it's an easy find if you can track down used Master System cartridges. Even easier is to get the Nintendo GameCube release Sonic Adventure DX which includes the game as a hidden bonus.
When Sonic's first adventure became a rousing success
Sega knew their had found their
mascot and, in the years to come, released dozens of games featuring Sonic and his friends over a wide variety of systems.
Sega CD
Sega Master System
Game Gear
32X
Sega Pico
PC
Sega Saturn
Sega Dreamcast
Arcades
Neo Geo Pocket Color
N-Gage
Game Boy Advance
Nintendo GameCube
Sony PlayStation 2
Microsoft XBox
Like
Nintendo's
Mario, Sonic enjoyed a life of luxury in the world of
marketing. The hedgehog was plastered all over almost any product you can imagine, including clothing, toys, coloring books, comic books, and other items.
One Sonic product that always stuck out in my mind, however, was the Segasonic Soda. It was a carbonated fruity drink sold only in Japanese vending machines. The cans were red and blue and had a picture of Sonic on the front in his famous "finger wagging" pose. The editors of the gaming magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly were so mystified by the soda that they sent one of their reporters to Japan back in 1992 to buy as many cases of the stuff as he could and bring them back to the EGM offices for the staff to drink.