Hacking Sonic: A study on everything wrong with Sonic the Hedgehog

By Stephen Munn | October 1, 2008

Nearly everyone who was gaming in the 16-bit generation retains something of a soft spot for Sega’s high-velocity mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog. A clever concept that took off for Sega more than even they could have expected, the Blue Blur has now made his way to every current and previous-generation system, thanks to the collapse of Sega’s hardware division.

Sadly, the story of Sonic the Hedgehog isn’t all adrenaline and red shoes. There’s a lot of disappointment and frustration now over the fact that Sonic’s had a hard time adjusting to the more nuanced console generations that followed the Genesis. The reason for this is pretty simple: the driving force behind Sonic is speed, and speed is shallow. When Sega’s various teams try to do something more than speed, Sonic hits a wall. Not one of those breaking walls that he’s supposed to hit, either.

Art: Sega via Creative Uncut

Sonic hasn’t adjusted well to 3D worlds because his speed does not lend itself to shifting perspectives and cameras and things. He’s a two-dimensional character, and even when rendered in 3D, he’s at his very best when running through 2D environments, as in Sonic Rush. In fact, I thought Sonic Rush was better than Sonic the Hedgehog 3 on Genesis… though I can’t imagine anything topping Sonic 2.

So here we have a very important character who seems to be at odds with Sega’s goals. You see, Sega has said they won’t do a Sonic game unless it has a “hook” or “gimmick” to it, which is why in Sonic Unleashed, he turns into an elastic werewolf at night. In Sonic and the Black Knight, he’s got a sword. But this isn’t what makes a good Sonic game. What if Sega went with some deeper gimmicks?

What if they took the confusingly-implemented time travel concept in Sonic CD and ran with it… so to speak? How about a Sonic game where Sonic can manipulate time by running really fast? Break the game into stages, and start each world where Sonic drops in, sees the place is a mess, runs fast to travel back in time and prevent the bad thing from happening, then fast-forwards and runs through a more traditional Sonic-type stage and then fights an elaborate boss as the angry bad guy who did all the damage in the first place drops in?

How about a Sonic game where you have a fixed amount of time to complete the game, because really bad things happen at specific times, like sections of the world being destroyed?

All I’m saying is the developers need to take Sonic speed and come up with a hook that makes sense with it. Swords? No. Elastic werewolves? No. 3D adventure games? No. RPGs? For heaven’s sake, no. Let’s break down what we love about Sonic.

• Speed. Sonic needs to move very, very fast. Make it ridiculous. When Sonic the Hedgehog came out for Sega Genesis, it defined the generation because we’d never seen anything so fast. This means we don’t need massive worlds or incredible detail in the backgrounds, we just want Sonic to go so fast we can’t even see the grass. Then push it over the line: when Sonic gets to top speed, he needs to run off the screen as if the technology in our game systems just can’t keep up with the little bugger. The Genesis and GBA games did this, and it added a lot to the sense of barely-in-control velocity.

• Digital control. Sonic does not sneak anywhere. He’s either running or he just smacked into an enemy and dropped all his rings. Analog control so he can stroll along all casually is just stupid.

• Rings you can catch. Why is it that now when we take damage, we lose our rings and then they vanish instantly in thin air? Make them scatter everywhere so we have to scramble to pick them up. We don’t care if the game drops to four frames per second when that happens. That’s part of the excitement. It’s like bullet time by accident and we love it.

• Enemies you can plow through. I like crouching down, winding up some momentum, and shattering a robot into thousands of pieces at a million miles per hour. It makes me feel like a hedgehog. Don’t make me jump first, then lock on and press a button to attack.

• Two dimensional worlds. Sonic doesn’t work in 3D, that’s all there is to it. You can use all the 3D you want, just lock the camera alongside Sonic and let him run left and right, rolling and jumping happily. I never want to see the back of Sonic’s head again, because it just doesn’t look right. Make the worlds big, but not so big we can’t get lots of different ones. Make them colorful and bright, except where appropriate. Don’t make big brown ugly walls just because you didn’t make anything in that direction.

• Knuckles. Now that Shadow the Hedgehog has been ruined by that turd Sega laid last generation, Knuckles remains as the franchise’s only NPC who doesn’t suck. We hate Tails, we hate Amy Rose, and we don’t even know where the hell “Big the Cat” came from. What do we want from Knuckles? We want him to be the only supporting character in the franchise. He’s the guy Player 2 plays as. You can play as him and take a different path through the game.

• Crazy robot bosses. In my experience, all the best bosses in the Sonic games are crammed into one title: Sonic Rush on DS. These bosses are elaborate, complex machines that move in and out of the screen while you run left and right, creating a more open feel and a less predictable battle experience without ripping you out of your left-right-jump controls. More of this, less of the giant flying-away airplane garbage from Sonic Heroes.

• Awesome music. Bring back the guy who did all the music for Sonic 2 and pay him whatever he wants. The music in that game remains the best in the series, hands down. This is part of what brings us back to a game again and again, and it also sells soundtrack albums.

• No extreme sports. Finally, keep Sonic a platformer. We don’t want to surf, skate, play hockey, race, or anything else like that. We just want to run and jump and smash the crap out of robots. Is that too much to ask?