How it was like to be a Sonic fan in the 90s?

[Solister]

I've made a similar post on another community I'm part of, so I thought I'd bring it up here too, since it's been a while since I don't create a new topic.

I'll leave the post quite vague, as I want to hear it from different perspectives, but I'm curious: Those who grew up alongside the franchise since day 1 (or close to it), what was it like?

Here are some north guide questions:

• How did you find out about the series? What made you engaged?
• How did you find and react to the new entries?
• How did you feel about the evolution of the franchise, in all aspects?: the gameplay, the introduction of new characters, the transition to 3D, etc.
• What do you feel are the biggest differences in the gaming world of today from back then?
• Any particular memory that stands out?

Although I'm a little biased here, for me, it's quite crazy to think about the streak of Sonic 1, 2, CD, and 3 & Knuckles all being released within 4 years. But then to think it would take over 5 years until Sonic Adventure, I'm not sure if my interest in the series had stayed. However, that's not counting people who probably wouldn't even get a Sega CD or Dreamcast on day 1 if they even had the Genesis/Mega Drive in the first place.

I'm also curious as to how the time pass felt back then, if Sonic Adventure was released today, and we look backward to Sonic 1, that would be the equivalent of looking back to a little after Sonic Boom was released, and months before Sonic Mania and Forces were announced.

[Shiny Gems]

Well, I had Sonic 2 and a Sega Genesis for Christmas one time, and when I played it, I loved it! That game was the first Sonic game I ever played.

I found out about Sonic by looking at a picture of him before I got the Sega Genesis and the game, and I thought he was odd looking, so I was into him.

Anyway, I was excited for Sonic 3, and wanted to try out Sonic Adventure, and I loved Sonic 3 in particular. I didn't get to play Sonic Adventure until the early 2000s.

I thought the evolution of the franchise was fine enough. It did have its flaws, but I barely noticed them. I barely noticed any differences in the transition to 3D when I played Sonic Adventure 2. I also enjoyed some of the new characters.

Overall, there are not may differences in the gaming world of today from back then, aside from some noticeable changes made in the 3D games, but they did not affect me much.

For memories that stand out, I loved Sonic Unleashed's daytime stages. Nighttime stages were cool, too. Perhaps my biggest memory that stands out was hearing Sonic speak for the first time when I played Sonic Adventure 2, as Sonic Adventure 1 was played later. I guess another memory that stands out was hearing the songs of Sonic R, the ones that had vocal lyrics in them.

Overall, it felt great being a Sonic fans in the 90s.

[Cuz]

I'm just a few months older than Sonic. 1991 born and raised, so I've been a Sonic fan for as long as I can remember. Probably renting AoStH and SatAM from video hut got me into the franchise. Either Sonic 3 and Knuckles on the Sonic and Knuckles collection or Sonic CD on the PC were my first Sonic games. I've always enjoyed super speedsters like the Flash and Sonic as characters, DIC Sonic is also a lot like Bugs Bunny and I grew up on Looney Tunes. 

The Archie comics filled the gap between Sonic R and Adventure. I remember when the OVA dropped and that was a fresh breath of air. It was cool seeing new characters like Big and Chaos, and later Shadow and Rouge. 

Long live the Freedom Fighters!

Edited April 9 by Cuz

[Ghelatlishol]

In my memory, there wasn't a time I didn't know of Sonic. He just kind of appeared in my life. I was born at the tail end of 1990, and my Mom always told me my uncle introduced me to the original game on the Genesis.

From there, I remember getting a Sega Genesis for Christmas 1996 and a copy of Sonic 2. Played that game everyday for my allowed hour of time, except on Sundays (we were strict observers of the day of rest idea...but that stopped late 90s.)

What else I knew came in bits and pieces. I tried Sonic 3 at a friend's house, rented it, and eventually got it as well. S&K demo at Walmart, etc. Sonic Schoolhouse and Sonic R for the PC as a bundle sale at Best Buy.

I only ever knew of the cartoons by renting them from Blockbuster or Hollywood Video, and the occasional showing on TV.

Then around middle school, my Mom took away all my Sonic games because it became readily apparent that it was all I ever thought about. An unhealthy video game addiction. And I'm glad she did that. Returned them to me a year later and I had fully discovered a life free of the screen, but my love for Sonic never went away.

Got Sonic Adventure as an elementary school graduation gift, Sonic Adventure 2 later on, and then my experience pretty much ended with Sonic Heroes, except for the GBA games.

And that's pretty much it. Though I remember wishing for a full fledged movie since 1995 and also having a TSS account back in 2004...long gone.

My Dad often helped me get onto Sonic HQ in the 90s. That was an awesome website for media at the time. He and my uncle would make me burned CDs of the various level tracks and I'd listen to them on car rides, field trips, charter busses, etc.

 

Edited April 9 by Ghelatlishol

[Dreadknux]

Oh man, I can talk about this subject ALL DAY.  I have many fond memories of Sonic in my childhood. Watching the first syndicated episode of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog on Channel 4 on a random Sunday morning in January 1994 (it was snowing outside that day and we went sledding later on :D). Collecting Sonic the Comic every two weeks from the supermarket and reading it in the car on the way home. When Sonic & Knuckles was being promoted in the UK, there were special packs of Milky Way chocolate bars where winning wrappers could win you the game and a Mega Drive - I got into a habit of just grabbing a bar on the way back from school every day, lol.

I got into Sonic (and video games in general) in like, first year of primary school? I was about 7, it must have been 1992. My best friend at the time had a Mega Drive and Sonic 1 at his house, and I was just drawn in by how colourful it was. Saved up all my money and went to the shop, ended up getting a Master System by mistake (it had Sonic 1 MS built in). So for the years of around 1992-1994 maybe, I had a Master System and all the mainline games on that before trading up to a Mega Drive with Sonic 2...

Could never afford the games as they came out because, like, I was a kid, but the hype around Sonic in playgrounds at schools was unreal. Sonic 'mania' was a real thing. Stationary shops were packed with books, magazines and branded goods all with Sonic's face on it. I remember even getting a 'Matey' bubble bath bottle that was shaped like Sonic! 

You'd be right in thinking that it was hard for kids to stay connected to Sonic during the mid-late 90s, as that happened to me pretty much. My friend had a Sega Saturn and I'd often go round his house to play Sonic R and Jam, so I still had a little connection there, but by and large I was becoming 'too cool' for Sonic and generally speaking his popularity in general was waning with how bad the Saturn was selling (and the lack of Sonic games in general). I ended up getting a Nintendo 64 (thanks to Mario Kart and Goldeneye) and didn't look back for many years.

And then in secondary school, around about 1998/1999 when the internet was becoming more popularised, our school's IT centre installed a number of net-connected computers for students to use. Because I saw other schoolkids playing ROMs of Sonic 2 that they had brought in on floppy disk drives (all the while trying to hide what they were doing from the teachers!), I searched for Sonic online and saw loads of active communities and sites like Sonic HQ, Sonic Foundation, Moogle Cavern etc. It inspired me to make this very website! I learned basic HTML code via a book in the school library, like a dork. :D

At the same time, the Dreamcast was coming out and there was a bit of buzz around it. Especially with Sonic Adventure. I know the whole "we back" meme is a little overplayed now, but this genuinely felt like a "we back" moment for Sonic. Sadly it wasn't enough to stand off against the PS2, but for a short while the DC was all people talked about at school. Playing Sonic Adventure for the first time (my friend got one at launch and brought his console round to our house) was magical~~.

I won't go too far into the 2000s because we're talking about the 90s here, but I have fond memories of the Dreamcast years, even to the point of spending an entire summer 2001 playing and replaying Sonic Adventure 2 to get as high a score as I possibly could. Wish I had the time to do that these days, haha. But yeah, the 90s was probably the decade with the most extreme bell curve for interest in the Sonic franchise for me - massive high, massive low, then massive high again!

7 hours ago, Ghelatlishol said:

Then around middle school, my Mom took away all my Sonic games because it became readily apparent that it was all I ever thought about. An unhealthy video game addiction. And I'm glad she did that. 

Yeah, that's a familiar story with a lot of kids and video games I think. I have a funny memory of my childhood here; my mum would always say to me that if I played these Mega Drives too much "I'd get square eyes" and have weird dreams, etc. One day, we got Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine and I swear to you, it was the one game that clicked with my mum. Only time she wanted to sit down and pick up the controller. She had to stop because one morning she told me and my brother that she started having 'dreams about beans falling from the sky and matching with each other' 

[Maple Syrup]

1 hour ago, Dreadknux said:

Oh man, I can talk about this subject ALL DAY.  I have many fond memories of Sonic in my childhood. Watching the first syndicated episode of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog on Channel 4 on a random Sunday morning in January 1994 (it was snowing outside that day and we went sledding later on :D). Collecting Sonic the Comic every two weeks from the supermarket and reading it in the car on the way home. When Sonic & Knuckles was being promoted in the UK, there were special packs of Milky Way chocolate bars where winning wrappers could win you the game and a Mega Drive - I got into a habit of just grabbing a bar on the way back from school every day, lol.

I got into Sonic (and video games in general) in like, first year of primary school? I was about 7, it must have been 1992. My best friend at the time had a Mega Drive and Sonic 1 at his house, and I was just drawn in by how colourful it was. Saved up all my money and went to the shop, ended up getting a Master System by mistake (it had Sonic 1 MS built in). So for the years of around 1992-1994 maybe, I had a Master System and all the mainline games on that before trading up to a Mega Drive with Sonic 2...

Could never afford the games as they came out because, like, I was a kid, but the hype around Sonic in playgrounds at schools was unreal. Sonic 'mania' was a real thing. Stationary shops were packed with books, magazines and branded goods all with Sonic's face on it. I remember even getting a 'Matey' bubble bath bottle that was shaped like Sonic! 

You'd be right in thinking that it was hard for kids to stay connected to Sonic during the mid-late 90s, as that happened to me pretty much. My friend had a Sega Saturn and I'd often go round his house to play Sonic R and Jam, so I still had a little connection there, but by and large I was becoming 'too cool' for Sonic and generally speaking his popularity in general was waning with how bad the Saturn was selling (and the lack of Sonic games in general). I ended up getting a Nintendo 64 (thanks to Mario Kart and Goldeneye) and didn't look back for many years.

And then in secondary school, around about 1998/1999 when the internet was becoming more popularised, our school's IT centre installed a number of net-connected computers for students to use. Because I saw other schoolkids playing ROMs of Sonic 2 that they had brought in on floppy disk drives (all the while trying to hide what they were doing from the teachers!), I searched for Sonic online and saw loads of active communities and sites like Sonic HQ, Sonic Foundation, Moogle Cavern etc. It inspired me to make this very website! I learned basic HTML code via a book in the school library, like a dork. :D

At the same time, the Dreamcast was coming out and there was a bit of buzz around it. Especially with Sonic Adventure. I know the whole "we back" meme is a little overplayed now, but this genuinely felt like a "we back" moment for Sonic. Sadly it wasn't enough to stand off against the PS2, but for a short while the DC was all people talked about at school. Playing Sonic Adventure for the first time (my friend got one at launch and brought his console round to our house) was magical~~.

I won't go too far into the 2000s because we're talking about the 90s here, but I have fond memories of the Dreamcast years, even to the point of spending an entire summer 2001 playing and replaying Sonic Adventure 2 to get as high a score as I possibly could. Wish I had the time to do that these days, haha. But yeah, the 90s was probably the decade with the most extreme bell curve for interest in the Sonic franchise for me - massive high, massive low, then massive high again!

Yeah, that's a familiar story with a lot of kids and video games I think. I have a funny memory of my childhood here; my mum would always say to me that if I played these Mega Drives too much "I'd get square eyes" and have weird dreams, etc. One day, we got Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine and I swear to you, it was the one game that clicked with my mum. Only time she wanted to sit down and pick up the controller. She had to stop because one morning she told me and my brother that she started having 'dreams about beans falling from the sky and matching with each other' 

Your'e saying this whole thing was made with HTML!? Unrelated but that's cool! I just started learning HTML!

[Dreadknux]

58 minutes ago, Maple Syrup said:

Your'e saying this whole thing was made with HTML!? Unrelated but that's cool! I just started learning HTML!

Ohhhh nooo, this place isn't run with just HTML anymore!  It's running on complex community platform software. :) But the very first iteration of the Sonic Stadium was nothing but HTML (not even CSS). Here's an image of it, from the archives:

It's very cool that you're learning HTML though, it's a great starting place and it's the bare bones of any good web development, so it's important to know. :) Hope you have fun with it!

[castell-neath]

I need to reply to this when I have more time as I have so, so much to say!! In a nushell though....what was it like to be a sonic fan in the 90s, aged between 9 (1991) and 18 (2000) ??

FU*KING AWSOME!!!

Edited April 9 by castell-neath

[Solister]

Thank you, everyone, for their responses, really enjoyed your in-depth reviews @Dreadknuxand @Ghelatlishol!

I don't have memories of my parents punishing me for playing too many video games, but maybe that's because I'm a 2000s kid and were also slightly strictly disciplined when it came to separate studying and playing.

Although you two sparkled a vague memory of when my mom got addicted to playing Columns on the SEGA Genesis Collection on the PS2, circa 2008-9 I'd say. Unfortunately, when I tried introducing her again some 7 years ago, she was kinda apathetic to it.

No surprise that she used to be so addicted to Candy Crush, stopping to think about it

[Maple Syrup]

4 minutes ago, Solister said:

Thank you, everyone, for their responses, really enjoyed your in-depth reviews @Dreadknuxand @Ghelatlishol!

I don't have memories of my parents punishing me for playing too many video games, but maybe that's because I'm a 2000s kid and were also slightly strictly disciplined when it came to separate studying and playing.

Although you two sparkled a vague memory of when my mom got addicted to playing Columns on the SEGA Genesis Collection on the PS2, circa 2008-9 I'd say. Unfortunately, when I tried introducing her again some 7 years ago, she was kinda apathetic to it.

No surprise that she used to be so addicted to Candy Crush, stopping to think about it

Yeah, i'm still a teen, yet I enjoy seeing people having fun, and stating with Sonic ever since the beginning! 

7 hours ago, Dreadknux said:

Ohhhh nooo, this place isn't run with just HTML anymore!  It's running on complex community platform software. :) But the very first iteration of the Sonic Stadium was nothing but HTML (not even CSS). Here's an image of it, from the archives:

It's very cool that you're learning HTML though, it's a great starting place and it's the bare bones of any good web development, so it's important to know. :) Hope you have fun with it!

Oh, wow! I'm impressed! I LOVE coding! I might even make my own site one day! ;)

[Indigo Rush]

Growing up with Sonic was fun. I remember getting a Sega Genesis for my birthday alongside Sonic 1, and every birthday from then on I got a new Sonic game (Sonic had been around for a little bit by then, I'm just barely older than the first game), I had a Sonic themed 6th birthday with Sonic themed party favors and napkins (I still have one saved in a photo album somewhere...) and I felt so wronged when I never got a 32X or Sega Saturn. I watched the cartoons as they came out (except Sonic Underground, I started developing taste by then) and had a few of the comics. I remember reading Endgame when it was released. I had a few of the novelizations that had their own wacky canon to them, I had a talking Sonic plush that said "SEGA" and it took Pokemon to knock me out of my Sonic obsession for a year. I did get the Dreamcast for Christmas after it came out because it was all I wanted, so I went right back into Sega's back pocket. I believed in the Dreamcast so hard, I was legitimately depressed when they dropped out of the hardware race. Immediately asked my folks for a Gamecube so I could raise my Chao on Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, though now we've left the 90s at this point.

[Dreadknux]

Haha, I just found an old advert promoting the Milky Way / Sonic & Knuckles competition that I was addicted to as a kid!

That Milky Way wrapper is forever burned into my brain, lol!

Oh, also another fond memory I forgot to mention; SEGA was pretty big on marketing their games back in the day (as they had a console to sell back then). During the lead-up to Sonic & Knuckles, this came in the form of a 'SEGA Bus' that had Sonic imagery painted onto it. I remember going to a video game show in London that year and seeing this massive bus with Sonic on it. It was a double-decker that had loads of Mega Drives and TVs installed on the upper floor (and Game Gears loaded with Sonic Triple Trouble on the bottom floor). They held contests on the upper deck, where kids would have 10 minutes to get as high a score as possible on S&K, starting from Mushroom Hill. I took part, but because I hadn't played Sonic 3 at the time the Special Stages concept was new to me so I didn't get very far, lol. But it was a cool way to let people play S&K ahead of release.

I took home a really cool poster from that event, which was black and simply had a white S&K logo and the release date underneath it. Sadly, I don't have it anymore (it suffered irreparable damage over time due to... well, me being a kid) and can't find images of it online. :(

[keithg]

I also got to experience Sonic during first year of primary school. I was at my best friend's house who had some older brother and at the time had a Mega Drive and Sonic 1 (apparently was a gift from their grandmother for passing some exams). I guess what really got me was how cool this character looked, the colours, the attitude and speed. I kept nagging my parents to buy me a Mega Drive for a couple of years, and finally for Christmas I got a Mega Drive 2 with Sonic 2.

Another hugely influential medium was the Fleetway Sonic the Comic. In a pre-internet world this was only of the few place to get a fortnightly Sonic fix! The Saturn years were the worst, with no mainline Sonic whilst Playstation owners were getting 3D Crash and Spyros. The Sonic Adventure announcement for Dreamcast was indeed a wow moment and getting to play that for the first time was indeed an unforgettable experience.

[DaddlerTheDalek]

For me it began with Sonic 1 & 2 in like... 1994-1995 or something. I was a little kid.

[Guergy]

Like some people on this thread, I started with Sonic 2 on the Sega Genesis that I got as a gift. I was also exposed to other Sega titles such Nights into Dreams, Streets of Rage and other Sega titles. I remember watching some episodes of the Sonic TV Show including Underground when I got my computer. It was fun to be alive as I also discovered fan sites as a teenager. 

[LongcrierCat]

I was five years old. It was 1999 before my 6th birthday and I got home where my dad surprised me with a comic book. It was of this guy I would soon get to know way better very soon afterwards.

We had a Sega Genesis at home where I'd play Animaniacs or Sonic 2 or Sonic 1 on the Sega 6-Pak. This was some time after we would borrow this kindly neighbor's NES where we'd play a Simpsons game and my favourite on the system, Mario 3. After we got that Genesis, I didn't mind us not borrowing the NES anymore. These are memories I'd never trade.

Then we took that Genesis to Grandma's because they got me the Nintendo 64 with Mario 64 and WCW Wrestling that year.

When I'd be at home, I'd be playing on the Nintendo 64 playing Mario 64, Rayman 2, Banjo Kazooie, Pod Racing.

But when I'd go to grandma's there'd be my comics I brought along, the Sega Genesis... and Toon Disney.

This is where I learned I could watch Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog reruns. And this is when I knew for a fact that I loved this blue dude. Couldn't get enough of him even when I'd take a break on the computer to play the PC Copy of Rayman 2. Look. If there's a crossover I've dreamt of seeing it's a Rayman, Sonic, and Mario crossover. But I'll gladly take a Rayman and Sonic crossover too.

I still remember when the Macintosh I had at home had the Power PC features. Because they got me Sonic 3D Blast for the computer. But then there'd be the day my grandpa surprised me with the Sonic 3 PC collection. And they had a copy of Sonic R just ready for me. I would play that for months, years even. You cannot convince me that game is bad. It's always been good.

I still remember this day in late Summer of 1999 where a newspaper came in on grandma's step and as she was reading it she told me about the little article where Sonic was going 3D. I was so excited because I saw how good Mario was in 3D so of course Sonic was going to be great in 3D. The little black and white screenshot of him in Red Mountain's underground section is still a fond memory I remember to this day. Grandma even told me about the Sonic Team website where I would check on the Sonic news and even catch when they announced the 10th anniversary bundle of Sonic Adventure 2 in 2000 before the 2001 release of the game.

I didn't get to play the Adventure games until 2008 or so when I had the Wii tho because my parents were all about the 2 in 1 that was the PS2 with its DVD drive. That drive never worked right for me tho. The scanlines were bad and the track rolling was awful on the CRT.

I still don't regret my journey with this series.

... even if the online community sounded just like my parents with the endless criticism for this series all the way back in the early 2000s to now.

Nowadays, I wish I had kept the Archie Sonic comics in great condition and kept them in a box with me. But at least I have dad's comics? Maybe one day I can work up an Archie collection again. Oh well. I have a Sonic the Comic collection now. And it's opened my eyes more on how diverse the Sonic Multiverse can still be.

Now if only Sega can realize that and make most of its fanbase happy for once.

[SadVlad]

In the 90s Sonic was everywhere.

I got Sonic 2 bundled with my Genesis. We played other entries by renting them from video stores.

I never had a problem with newer games. I was always excited by the fact that we were just getting a new Sonic game.

Now a days people are too sensitive and overly critical. I stead of just enjoying a game for what it is, they have to always look for something wrong, or worry about what someone else thinks.

My fondest memory is plugging Sonic 2 into the Sonic three cartridge to use Knuckles in Sonic 2.

[regularmilo]

I was born in 1987 so I would have been around 4 when the original Sonic came out. I remember my mom taking me to a friend's house and the friend's husband or whatever wanted to show me what video games were and busted out a Genesis with Sonic 1. I was instantly hooked. I remember it feeling like I was controlling a cartoon.

I eventually got my own Genesis for Christmas with Sonic & Knuckles and family members would gift me Sonic games yearly after that. So this would have been around 1995-96. By this point all the mainline Sonic games had come out and I was fully obsessed. I wanted a Sega Saturn so bad so I could play Sonic R but my folks were kinda poor and we couldn't afford new, top of the line video games. So I played S3&K over and over and over again. I filled up every save file on that cart with full 100% completions for every character, multiple times (I still have that same cart with those same files). I remember my friend would bring his manual for Sonic R to school so I could just look at it. I was that obsessed.

I remember when Pokemon came out I kind of fell out of my love for Sonic... (side note... I was so into Pokemon, I remember thinking "I'm gonna be into this forever" and then getting a little older and thinking, "that was juvenile, I don't think I'll like Pokemon when I grow up", but here I am, 37 years old and still playing Pokemon like I'm a little kid :P ) When hype for Sonic Adventure started as news came out, I came back to the Sonic fold like finding an old friend again and I was obsessed all over. Sonic Adventure was one of the first times I can remember following the news of a game before its release and counting down the days until I could buy it. I would go to the grocery store with my mom and grab whatever gaming mags they had looking for info about the new Sonic Game.

Around 1998-99 my mom got Internet hooked up in our house and I discovered Sonic fan communities. I was there for the early days of Sonic HQ, The Sonic Foundation, Sonic Stadium... I just logged in and gobbled up all the discussion, fan art, fan games, even tried cobbling together my own dinky little fan games in a pirated copy of The Games Factory and some sprites I downloaded from SFGHQ. This is also when I discovered Sonic prototypes like the Simon Wai Sonic 2 Beta and my fascination for cut content in gaming was born.

[GeAr-DX]

I just remember stuff starting from 97. Here in my country most people saw Sonic for the first time in the 90s in the AOSTH cartoon or in a Master-System game, most peoples had the Master-System here since it was the most affordable game console at the time, Mega-Drive just became more common in 98/99. The first Sonic game that I played was the 8-bits version of the original, in the Master-System, it was 97, I was super small and didn't knew anything that I was doing. My true passion with the series began in 98, when I was 4 years old and played the Mega-Drive for the first time, that was awesome, and things got even better when my mother gave me a Mega-Drive in my 5th birthday.

I can't say a lot about being a Sonic fan in the 90s because I just lived the late 90s and, even if I lived the early, most of the fame from the franchise here got a boom in the very last years of the 90s and mainly in the early 2000s. In the 90s we just saw Sonic in games, one or two commercials (games commercials weren't common here), game magazines and some merchandise from Tec-Toy (Normally from a store called Casa & Vídeo). But in the early 2000s things became different, mostly thanks to the internet and the global economic grown, the Dreamcast got a good but small fame here (mainly thanks to piracy), Sonic SatAM started airing in 2001 or 2002. The boom of the websites also helped a lot, PowerSonic was the greatest one here and it sure helped for people to get more into the franchise.

[Covskin]

You could split the decade in half really.

1991 - 1995 and Sonic was everywhere. I went to a friend's house and they had Sonic 2, which was my introduction to the series. Later on my cousin showed me the first game, and I eventually got my own Mega Drive with Sonic 2 in Christmas 1993. From there it was all Sonic, all the time. Sonic cartoons weren't just at the weekend - episodes were split up and shown in smaller parts on The Big Breakfast weekdays on Channel 4 in the UK. Then you got VHS releases. SatAM swapping in some weekends. Sonic comics every two weeks. Sonic annuals. Sonic novels, choose-your-own adventures and joke books. Sonic birthday cakes. Sonic pencil cases. Sonic Tiger handhelds.* Not forgetting Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Spinball and the Game Gear iterations.

1996 onwards and its been said before, but that long drought after Sonic & Knuckles really did a number on the franchise. Sure there were spinoffs, but by the time even Sonic 3D was released the Playstation was out and diverting attention elsewhere. The cartoons ran their course. Underground was a wet fart. The comics, having run out of stuff to adapt (and in the UK reached the obvious story point of overthrowing Robotnik) turned to reprints. Without a blockbuster Sonic game to play, all the new franchises were taking our interests. It was as if Sonic had dropped off the face of the earth.

I first saw screenshots of Sonic Adventure in a magazine either late 1998 or early 1999. Seeing the characters in urban environments alongside a giant robot and cat was a big surprise. To me it looked like a whole new genre. Turns out all those screenshots were the adventure fields! I don't know what kind of impact Sonic Adventure had for a lot of people but I know none of my friends, pretty much all whom had been fans of the classics, ever spoke about it. We were all Playstation gamers now, and it was all about the PS2 next. Sonic had been left behind.

 

*yes I had all of these, and more

[Solister]

Wow, so many amazing stories, this has been a very fun topic to follow! I wish I had more time to read and talk about each one of those in detail.

On 4/12/2024 at 2:05 PM, regularmilo said:

So I played S3&K over and over and over again. I filled up every save file on that cart with full 100% completions for every character, multiple times (I still have that same cart with those same files).

Damn, I can't even imagine the emotional value that cartridge must have. Most of the things I used to love as a 10-year-old kid are already lost through time. Heck, even some saved files I had from less than 5 years ago I already lost!

But one thing I didn't imagine before, and I saw a lot of people commenting, was how "intense" the "dark ages" from 1995-1998 were. I sure expected Sonic popularity would go down a little, but I thought Sonic R, 3D Blast, the comics, and cartoons could have been at least enough to keep some momentum before Adventure.

8 hours ago, GeAr-DX said:

I just remember stuff starting from 97. Here in my country most people saw Sonic for the first time in the 90s in the AOSTH cartoon or in a Master-System game, most peoples had the Master-System here since it was the most affordable game console at the time, Mega-Drive just became more common in 98/99. The first Sonic game that I played was the 8-bits version of the original, in the Master-System, it was 97, I was super small and didn't knew anything that I was doing. My true passion with the series began in 98, when I was 4 years old and played the Mega-Drive for the first time, that was awesome, and things got even better when my mother gave me a Mega-Drive in my 5th birthday.

I can't say a lot about being a Sonic fan in the 90s because I just lived the late 90s and, even if I lived the early, most of the fame from the franchise here got a boom in the very last years of the 90s and mainly in the early 2000s. In the 90s we just saw Sonic in games, one or two commercials (games commercials weren't common here), game magazines and some merchandise from Tec-Toy (Normally from a store called Casa & Vídeo). But in the early 2000s things became different, mostly thanks to the internet and the global economic grown, the Dreamcast got a good but small fame here (mainly thanks to piracy), Sonic SatAM started airing in 2001 or 2002. The boom of the websites also helped a lot, PowerSonic was the greatest one here and it sure helped for people to get more into the franchise.

A fellow Brazilian!

I was only born in 2003, so I couldn't experience anything like that as a kid, despite I did find Sonic through the PlayStation 2 on one of the many compilations of SEGA classics they released.

I know you already have developed a lot, as well as I have read a ton from other Brazilians online, but if you have anything else to add, I'd love to hear, because so far, that would probably be the closest to my alt-reality if I was born 10–15 years earlier.

And ofc, Power Sonic. I remember my older brother accessing it almost as early as I can remember from using a computer (that would probably be by the mid to late 00s, I was 5-8 years old) and later by myself when I was 10 by early 2010s.

Speaking of SATAM, I do have vague memories of, at least, seeing Sonic X being aired through TV Globinho or Jetix, although I can barely put my finger on a date. 2008-2009 perhaps?

-----

I've seen a lot of people who wanted to continue their stories through the early 00s and beyond, but didn't so because it would be out of the 90s. So of course, even though the topic mentions the 90s, I'd love to hear your experiences further!

[regularmilo]

2 hours ago, Solister said:

Damn, I can't even imagine the emotional value that cartridge must have. Most of the things I used to love as a 10-year-old kid are already lost through time. Heck, even some saved files I had from less than 5 years ago I already lost!

But one thing I didn't imagine before, and I saw a lot of people commenting, was how "intense" the "dark ages" from 1995-1998 were. I sure expected Sonic popularity would go down a little, but I thought Sonic R, 3D Blast, the comics, and cartoons could have been at least enough to keep some momentum before Adventure.

A lot of the games and stuff I had when I was a kid are indeed lost to time, but that cartridge will forever be with me. I have vivid memories of the moment my grandma gifted it to me and every once in a while I'll pick the case up and hold it and think back to that moment... and it's just such a trip, that there it is, nearly 30 years later. My grandma has since passed which is part of the reason I still hang onto it.

Random 90s Sonic moments from my memory:

-Browsing Sonic fan art on AOL communities with my cousins on the Internet. They tricked me into believing that some of the weirder looking art was "how they draw Sonic in Japan".

-Going to Toys R Us to get Sonic Spinball. Back then, at least in the US, they didn't have the actual games out on the shelf. You had to take a little slip of paper with the name of the game on it to the front. I gave it to the lady at the counter and when she went to the back I imagined a giant warehouse  with every video game ever in it and she would get up on a 30 foot ladder to get my copy of Sonic Spinball.

-A friend in third grade (circa 1995) said he had played every Sonic game ever and swore he played Sonic 4 (not Sonic and Knuckles, he said). I find it fascinating that we wouldn't get a Sonic 4 until decades later.

-Buying a Dreamcast with Sonic Adventure the week it came out in the US. It was the first thing I ever bought with my own money I had saved up. We hooked it up and the whole family watched as I played through the opening scenes. We were all amazed with how realistic the graphics looked lol.

[GeAr-DX]

On 4/14/2024 at 9:58 PM, Solister said:

Wow, so many amazing stories, this has been a very fun topic to follow! I wish I had more time to read and talk about each one of those in detail.

Damn, I can't even imagine the emotional value that cartridge must have. Most of the things I used to love as a 10-year-old kid are already lost through time. Heck, even some saved files I had from less than 5 years ago I already lost!

But one thing I didn't imagine before, and I saw a lot of people commenting, was how "intense" the "dark ages" from 1995-1998 were. I sure expected Sonic popularity would go down a little, but I thought Sonic R, 3D Blast, the comics, and cartoons could have been at least enough to keep some momentum before Adventure.

A fellow Brazilian!

I was only born in 2003, so I couldn't experience anything like that as a kid, despite I did find Sonic through the PlayStation 2 on one of the many compilations of SEGA classics they released.

I know you already have developed a lot, as well as I have read a ton from other Brazilians online, but if you have anything else to add, I'd love to hear, because so far, that would probably be the closest to my alt-reality if I was born 10–15 years earlier.

And ofc, Power Sonic. I remember my older brother accessing it almost as early as I can remember from using a computer (that would probably be by the mid to late 00s, I was 5-8 years old) and later by myself when I was 10 by early 2010s.

Speaking of SATAM, I do have vague memories of, at least, seeing Sonic X being aired through TV Globinho or Jetix, although I can barely put my finger on a date. 2008-2009 perhaps?

-----

I've seen a lot of people who wanted to continue their stories through the early 00s and beyond, but didn't so because it would be out of the 90s. So of course, even though the topic mentions the 90s, I'd love to hear your experiences further!

I was asking myself if I would find more brazilians here, that's awesome!

One cool personal experience from the area where I live. My house is near a commercial center called Madureira, here we had a tower-like advertise from Casa & Video that they put a image of Sonic at the top, it was 98 or 99.

I also remember the first time that Sonic was showed with the Adventure design, it was like a urban legend, just a few people had access to internet in 99, some people said that he was with green eyes and totally, well, i'm not gonna translate that because it has to be said in portuguese, they said "ele tá bem mais boladão do que comum". I remember when I saw for the first time in a magazine, it was awesome, a total shock. Soon after, Casa & Video started to use this design of Sonic in advertises too.

I was holding myself from talking more after the 2000, but I think that is okay to talk a bit (I guess). I remember how everyone started to love Sonic when the SatAM cartoon started to air in the SBT channel, some persons got to watch two episodes with a strange dub before that because a VHS with two episodes was sold in some newsstands (myself included).

Also, the Dreamcast was quite popular here in his short lifespan (thanks to piracy, like most consoles here), so some persons got to know Sonic in the Dreamcast.

The internet boom was a great help too, maybe the greatest, people wanted to know more about Sonic, and in the 2000s Sonic was a huge force in the internet. We got a lot of brazilian websites to help people to know each other and help each other to interact. PowerSonic was (and still is) the greatest, a good set of reviews, lot of downloads, trivia and information about the lore. Other sites that I used to access were AmySite (that merged with PowerSonic), the DarkSonic Fórum, SonicPalace (Where I discovered Sonic Shorts). A lot of people also got to play Sonic games thanks to emulators, the GBA games made a lot of people got in love with the franchise.

And then, 2004 hit. CAAAAAARA!! That was the year, that was when the Sonic Boom (No pun intended) really started here. The PS2 become a bit more affordable, every camelo always had Sonic Heroes selling, the emulator boom helped A LOT (Sonic Battle was THE GAME for everyone that played the GBA emulator and loved Sonic at that time), the gamer culture boom, newgrounds culture in the internet, internet helping to form the fandoms, and then... Sonic X came in 2004. Game magazines talking about Sonic's new anime, Revista Recreio was super big here in Brasil and had Sonic in the cover, Jetix was something huge here, McDonald's started to give a Sonic minigame with the Happy Meals. That was a super year and 2005 came with even more power thanks to Shadow The Hedgehog, yes, the game that a lot of people hate, but it had guns and every camelo was always selling, everyone that saw thought that was super cool and Shadow was super rad. I know a lot of people that started in the franchise because of this game and love it until today.

Man, those were great times, it's so crazy that it was 20 years ago, a lot of stuff in my life was thanks to the influence of Sonic, decisions, goals and friends that I meet. It's a great road that we are still running.

[Solister]

33 minutes ago, GeAr-DX said:

I was asking myself if I would find more brazilians here, that's awesome!

One cool personal experience from the area where I live. My house is near a commercial center called Madureira, here we had a tower-like advertise from Casa & Video that they put a image of Sonic at the top, it was 98 or 99.

I also remember the first time that Sonic was showed with the Adventure design, it was like a urban legend, just a few people had access to internet in 99, some people said that he was with green eyes and totally, well, i'm not gonna translate that because it has to be said in portuguese, they said "ele tá bem mais boladão do que comum". I remember when I saw for the first time in a magazine, it was awesome, a total shock. Soon after, Casa & Video started to use this design of Sonic in advertises too.

I was holding myself from talking more after the 2000, but I think that is okay to talk a bit (I guess). I remember how everyone started to love Sonic when the SatAM cartoon started to air in the SBT channel, some persons got to watch two episodes with a strange dub before that because a VHS with two episodes was sold in some newsstands (myself included).

Also, the Dreamcast was quite popular here in his short lifespan (thanks to piracy, like most consoles here), so some persons got to know Sonic in the Dreamcast.

The internet boom was a great help too, maybe the greatest, people wanted to know more about Sonic, and in the 2000s Sonic was a huge force in the internet. We got a lot of brazilian websites to help people to know each other and help each other to interact. PowerSonic was (and still is) the greatest, a good set of reviews, lot of downloads, trivia and information about the lore. Other sites that I used to access were AmySite (that merged with PowerSonic), the DarkSonic Fórum, SonicPalace (Where I discovered Sonic Shorts). A lot of people also got to play Sonic games thanks to emulators, the GBA games made a lot of people got in love with the franchise.

And then, 2004 hit. CAAAAAARA!! That was the year, that was when the Sonic Boom (No pun intended) really started here. The PS2 become a bit more affordable, every camelo always had Sonic Heroes selling, the emulator boom helped A LOT (Sonic Battle was THE GAME for everyone that played the GBA emulator and loved Sonic at that time), the gamer culture boom, newgrounds culture in the internet, internet helping to form the fandoms, and then... Sonic X came in 2004. Game magazines talking about Sonic's new anime, Revista Recreio was super big here in Brasil and had Sonic in the cover, Jetix was something huge here, McDonald's started to give a Sonic minigame with the Happy Meals. That was a super year and 2005 came with even more power thanks to Shadow The Hedgehog, yes, the game that a lot of people hate, but it had guns and every camelo was always selling, everyone that saw thought that was super cool and Shadow was super rad. I know a lot of people that started in the franchise because of this game and love it until today.

Man, those were great times, it's so crazy that it was 20 years ago, a lot of stuff in my life was thanks to the influence of Sonic, decisions, goals and friends that I meet. It's a great road that we are still running.

That's aweeeeeeesome!

I never, even thought the Dreamcast was popular here, and stopping to think about it, I don't think I've ever seen a SEGA console in real life . I used to access the Power Sonic Forum in one of its recent iterations (2014-2018, I think?) so if you were there around that time, we may have crossed paths :)

And wow, Revista Recreio... now that's a memory buried deep down in my memories. I also have vague memories of Jetix and Sonic X as I mentioned before too, but all too distant for me. I do have a Sonic X DVD and a "Sonic O Fantástico" DVD (which if I'm not mistaken is Sonic Christmas Blast + a few Sonic Underground episodes) but I have no idea how they came to me. I also have a few Sonic X comics buried somewhere in my house that should be from the same time.

[Shiny Gems]

Going into the 2000s...

I said I had picked up Sonic Adventure 2 Battle for the Gamecube and Sonic Adventure 1 for the Dreamcast in the early 2000s, BUT I stopped playing Sonic games, and video games from that point, for a short while. It wasn't until the mid-2000s when I heard of Sonic Gems Collection, which had Sonic CD and Sonic the Fighters as well as Sonic R. I got the game and played it to play those games. I then tried Sonic Heroes, Shadow's game, and then Sonic 06. I thought the very latter game, Sonic 06 was okay, but I did not know how bad it was until later when I joined the online Sega Forums (I was still kind of developing as a person back then). I did notice some faults in Sonic 06, however. Anyway, when Sonic Unleashed was announced, I was bored waiting for news on the game, so I joined the then open Sega Forums. From there, I have interacted with Sonic fans since, and I even developed more as a person. I was an angry, arrogant and not-so-smart person back then, but interaction with others and making friends changed me, with me eventually becoming the person I am today, which is the exact opposite of who I was back then.

When I joined the Sega Forums, though, I was surprised to see how the games of that time, Heroes, Shadow and Sonic 06, were badly received by fans, especially Sonic 06.