Sonic Celebrates 25 Years of Speed and Chilidogs

Everyone’s favorite hedgehog is turning 25 this year and there is pretty concept art to show off while we recount his many years of service.

in 1991, a blue little dude came on the not-so-big screen in the original Sonic The Hedgehog game released on the Sega Genesis. He was the new face of Sega and a direct answer to the other star mascot in gaming at the time: Mario. While the red was known for jumping, the blue was to be known to be the fastest thing alive. Not many people today don’t know about the blue hedgehog and his trademark speed.

Celebrating 25 years of running around at the speed of sound, we found some pretty neat concept art of said blue blur and some his buddies as well. Without further ado, let’s take a jog down memory lane:

The Retro Days:

Sonic’s beginning was strong. He appeared out of nowhere to appeal to the growing teenagers with his carefree attitude. Sonic was known to be the badass while Mario was super nice to everyone. Even his classic idle animation in the classic games will be always be remember cherished. He didn’t need to speak back then to know what he was telling you.

For those of you who didn’t know, but Sonic was originally going to be a rabbit. In most fairy tales, rabbits and hares are usually known to be the speedy types, but the team eventually agreed on Sonic being a hedgehog.

The Dreamcast Transition:

This era was where Sonic had to change for the new world of gaming: 3D gaming. At this time, the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation had already determined good ground in 3D gaming with Super Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot. However, it wasn’t until the Dreamcast that Sega really had their blue mascot take his running in 8 eight directions.

The transition was alright with games like the Sonic Adventure series. However, this was also the time where Sega had to drop the console business and focus on making Sonic available on other platforms instead. Then, we saw the remastered release of the Sonic Adventure series on the Nintendo GameCube.

Oh, this was also the time where the dark rival, Shadow the Hedgehog, got his own game where he used weapons such as guns and swords. We will never forget that Sega.

The Modern Gaming Era:

Finally, we arrive on the most difficult time for Sonic. During this time, Sega was having difficulty making quality Sonic games consistently. A few gems came up from time to time such as Sonic Colors, Sonic Generations and Sonic Rush. However, they are others we can’t forget that almost scarred us for life: Sonic Chronicles, the RPG attempt and of course, Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) that took the realistic route and proved to be disturbing more than anything.

Finally, with all these questions on the relevance of Sonic the Hedgehog to the gaming world brought about a fan war between those that will always believe in Sonic and those who argue that Sonic is dead since the Retro days. For most, the final nail was the introduction of the biggest reboot our hero has seen in years: Sonic Boom.

After the commercial failure of Sonic Boom in gaming, many wondered if that would be it for the future of Sonic games. However, Sonic continues to remain strong in possibly all other medias including television, social media (check out the Sonic Twitter for savage posts), merchandising and more. Also, Sega has also hinted on the development of a new Sonic game for 2017. Is this going to be the fabled Sonic Adventure 3 and the return of good Sonic games? Time will tell. For now, all we can say is: Happy Birthday Sonic!