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

[GeAr-DX]

1 hour ago, Solister said:

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.

We possibly didn't meet at the forum then :( , I stopped from using it around 2013, around that time the fandom was extremely toxic and  I'm the kind of person that don't try to use words when things become personal, I go direct to the brawling when someone tries to be passive aggressive, and that's impossible in the net. So I decided to only use Facebook at the time and even then I stopped from accessing Sonic groups and only got back here in around 2019 or so. But, my nick was Art-DX, I don't know if we meet at some point in some website.

I got some of those DVDs too, I even gave this Fantástico one to my younger brother, he's way younger than me, he's 9 years old and loves Sonic too.

[Solister]

@GeAr-DXand cc. @Shiny Gemssince you both were talking about the same subject.

Yeah, I also have some great and other not-so-great memories of accessing Forums back then. I mostly relate with what you guys said, it was a nice experience that grew me a lot as a person, especially when it comes to my moral views and discovering my personality, but oh boy, did I feel like a wimpy kid who suffered lots of cyberbullying... Like, I don't even blame them, but I kinda of recognize that was (not solely) one of the responsible for lots of mental health struggles I had during early adolescence and probably even skipping important steps when it comes to adulthood.

A (not so) fun fact, my SSMB* account was created in one of those moments I felt I'd outgrown the maturity of those forums and was probably pissed at something people told me (I won't deny it probably was something equally stupid, but anyway).

*Side note: I just realized SSMB as in Sonic Stadium Message Board is not even the current correct name to refer to here.

[Shiny Gems]

25 minutes ago, Solister said:

@GeAr-DXand cc. @Shiny Gemssince you both were talking about the same subject.

Yeah, I also have some great and other not-so-great memories of accessing Forums back then. I mostly relate with what you guys said, it was a nice experience that grew me a lot as a person, especially when it comes to my moral views and discovering my personality, but oh boy, did I feel like a wimpy kid who suffered lots of cyberbullying... Like, I don't even blame them, but I kinda of recognize that was (not solely) one of the responsible for lots of mental health struggles I had during early adolescence and probably even skipping important steps when it comes to adulthood.

A (not so) fun fact, my SSMB* account was created in one of those moments I felt I'd outgrown the maturity of those forums and was probably pissed at something people told me (I won't deny it probably was something equally stupid, but anyway).

*Side note: I just realized SSMB as in Sonic Stadium Message Board is not even the current correct name to refer to here.

I wasn’t exactly cyverbullied myself. Rather, I was kind of the bully. But my willingness to adapt, change and improve helped me become a better person. Learning and friendship had helped me a lot in improving myself.

[SpeedyChilidogs]

On 4/10/2024 at 5:58 AM, Dreadknux said:

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. :(

Whattt, That's so cool!! Mann, I feel like the 90's were amazing and it's funny cuz my mom was just talking about this the other day, she constantly talks about how the 2000s is when everything went bad and all with it's not entirely true, but I couldn't imagine how cool that would be lol! I'm just reading how cool y'all experiences are cuz it's so interesting to me. XD

[batson]

I was born in 86, and experienced the height of the Sonic craze from 1991 to 1995 (people sometimes talk as if Sonic somehow went from being huge in 94 to being immediately obscure by 95 just because no new major game was released that year, but in actuality I'd say it was more around 96 that people were staring to notice that Sonic as well as Sega in general were laggning behind the times).

The biggest difference between being a Sonic fan then and being one now I'd say was that Sonic at the time was THE big video game mega fad back then. Sonic has come and gone in populariy since the mid 90's but it has never again become the single biggest thing in the industry, not even close. So as big as Sonic was in say 2004 when Sonic X was making waves and the fanbase was everywhere on the internet, or right now with the movies and the resurgence of tons of merchandise and all, it was only during the first half of the 90's that saying that you were a fan of Sonic was treated like "well duh, OF COURSE you're a fan of Sonic, who isn't?". Well, if you were into video games in the first place that is. I think it deserves to be mentioned in any discussion on being a gamer in the 90's (especially in pre-Playstation times) that the entire video game medium was heavily skewed towards young males. If you were of female gender or already of adult age, nobody asumed you had any interest in video games at all.

But if you were a little boy like I was at the time, liking Sonic was the norm, not the exception. It was what Pokémon would become in the late 90's/early 00's, with the notable expection that the Pokémon craze was something that fully captured both genders instead of just boys.

[StreetSonic2022]

Since I was born in '88, when receiving my Sega Genesis around 1994 (I know I gotten Sonic 1 and the Genesis bundle with The Lion King game), I will have to say Sonic was big around the time. However, I didn't know he was THAT huge in popularity. I did remember watching both Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and SatAM. At the time frame, I didn't even know a video game franchise received not 1 but 2 cartoons! It was that big of a deal then. Other franchise I knew off the bat that had TV shows/movies were Street Fighter: the animated series, the huge SF2 anime Movie, and then the live-action with Jean Claude Van Damme, Raul Julia, Ming-Na and Kylie Minogue, Super Mario cartoon and movie, though I hadn't seen it, Pac-Man that had a cartoon show in the 80s, and later Mega Man, Zelda, Donkey Kong and Mortal Kombat. 

Honestly, besides having a Genesis and later on, a Game Gear, I didn't receive the other Sega products at the time, but I did know someone that had a Sega CD. Unfortunately, I haven't seen that person or anyone else play it. Sonic's major known hits to everyone I knew were the classic trilogy, and I did get most of the Game Gear titles: as S2 GG, Sonic Chaos, Triple Trouble, Drift 2 and Blast. However, many people I knew also had Super Nintendo, so Mario, Donkey Kong and other titles were out there for the gamers. Speaking of the cartoons, I was surprised when I found and bought Sonic Archie comics with issue 32, didn't even know Sonic even have comic books and based on SatAM, no less. But I didn't even know THAT will last longer too, just wait for my reaction a couple of years later when I got the Dreamcast. 

However, his popularity was starting to dwindle a bit due to what was going on around 1995 with SEGA: 32X development, Sega Saturn US debut with SEGA being so... silly behind the scenes which cost Sonic's next project for the Saturn badly! Meanwhile, I didn't become a huge Sonic fan due to my experience of the classic trilogy at the time, while favoring his GG spin-offs. Also, I was more of a Street Fighter/fighting game fan as a child with not only liking SF but also Virtua Fighter, Mortal Kombat II and Tekken. Not only that, but PlayStation was also THE console in the late 90s. Everyone was buying it and ignoring Saturn due to SEGA's incompetence. Nintendo tried to keep up with its Nintendo 64 but I wasn't getting that!

Then we get to the Dreamcast era, with Sonic Adventure blew me away (with Namco's Soul Calibur knocking at my doorstep for Christmas saying "Hello, I'm your new best fighting game of All-Time, beating Tekken 3 for PS1!"). That game made me a Sonic fan today but then that was also the internet was the now the norm, I found out that Sonic had another cartoon with Underground and after getting Sonic Shuffle, I was shocked that the Archie comic books was still going: didn't even know that Knuckles, Sally and Tails had their own books and spin-offs with the Super Specials. And I didn't even know about the Fleetway Comics for the UK fans existed. That even threw me out of the loop, although that discovery happened in the early 2000s with Sonic Adventure 2 was getting traction, but the Dreamcast was sadly falling into obscurity because of the rise of PlayStation 2. 

I can say this Sonic was popular in the early 90s and his popularity went down a bit a couple of years (blame SEGA during the Saturn era) but it was SA2 Battle around 2002 that brought in new fans, including my little brother, into a whole different level. 

Oh, and Sonic OVA came out to the US as a movie, so I did managed to record it via VHS.

Edited May 3 by StreetSonic2022

[SpeedyChilidogs]

1 hour ago, StreetSonic2022 said:

Oh, and Sonic OVA came out to the US as a movie, so I did managed to record it via VHS.

WHAT, OMG THAT'S SO COOL!! 

[regularmilo]

On 4/29/2024 at 3:39 AM, batson said:

I was born in 86, and experienced the height of the Sonic craze from 1991 to 1995 (people sometimes talk as if Sonic somehow went from being huge in 94 to being immediately obscure by 95 just because no new major game was released that year, but in actuality I'd say it was more around 96 that people were staring to notice that Sonic as well as Sega in general were laggning behind the times).

Completely agree. By the time I was old enough to really appreciate video games in depth, all the mainline games had already come out so most of my deep-dive Sonic experience was watching the cartoons and reading the comics.

And to your other point, it really was EVERYWHERE. You couldn't go to a store without seeing Sonic candy, ice-cream, spaghettios. I feel like I'm barely starting to see this again as Sonic is becoming more popular with the kiddos again. In fact, I went to Old Navy the other day and the kids section had some super kickass Sonic shirts. But nothing in the adult section for us old Sonic fans. :(

For my first day of 3rd grade at a new school I picked out a matching Sonic T-shirt and shorts set. They were too small, but I didn't care. I just KNEW that everyone at school would be floored by my super cool Sonic apparel. They were, in fact, not floored and I was kind of a laughingstock for a bit because the shorts were way too short... but that's okay, I felt super cool. :)

[Guergy]

I really wish I could revisit that era as Sonic was huge in America. With that said, it is sad to see Somic crash and burn like a musician who lost their career due to drugs or something. 

[Agie]

I'm afraid all of my personal memories of being a Sonic fan start in 2002, but my older siblings, despite not owning a Sega system, liked SatAM when it was new. My brother used to think those eyes at the end of the final episode were Knuckles, under the impression that Sega and the various people working on the IP had better communication than they actually did.

One of my brothers also read the Archie Sonic comics, though they seem to have stopped early on, since they only ever knew the character that would eventually become Scourge as "Evil Sonic." I had to tell one of my brothers that they went on to do things to further differentiate Evil Sonic from regular ol' Sonic. He sounded a bit surprised he wasn't just some one-off.

My brother also hated Antoine, and I have to admit, having watched SatAM, I could see why. The comics did thankfully develop his character, but to someone who hasn't kept up with those characters since the cartoon, their impression of Antoine began and ended with the terrible character he was in the show.

This goes a bit beyond the 90s, but when Sonic Adventure 2: Battle came out on Gamecube, my oldest brother knew he had to have it, because back then, Sonic appearing on a Nintendo system was unthinkable. We're used to it now, but still.

[ASurgeofLight]

 Hello all.  Long time listener, first time caller.  Saw this thread and thought I'd join to share my two-cents.

 

  My Sonic The Hedgehog adventure started in the mid 1990's when I was made aware of the character via an Adventures of Sonic The Hedgehog vhs my mom bought me.  I watched the tape over and over and became obsessed with the character.  Not too long after I rented a satam VHS and and started reading the Archie Sonic The Hedgehog comic at issue #53! and I feel in love with the series and the characters.  To this day Princess Sally and Bunnie Rabbot are some of my favorite Sonic characters.  And I love/miss the Freedom Fighters dearly.

 

  I've never been much of a gamer despite growing up owning most Nintendo and some SEGA systems at some point or another, but I remember having a PC port on Sonic & Knuckles around 1998 and being super excited when I got a Dreamcast and could play Sonic Adventure.  Which I did end up playing a lot of and was pretty much addicted to for months.

 

 Beyond that I remember being disappointed back in 1999, I think it was, that I wasn't able to watch Sonic Underground when it premiered because no network in my area aired it sadly.  I did get the Sonic & Knuckles underground plush from Dennys I think it was when they did that promotion though.  Sadly I lost them in a move years ago.

 

  So yeah, I guess I'm kind of an odd duck Sonic fan.  I got into and stayed interested in the series because of the various cartoons and comics.  I read Archie Sonic until it ended in early 2017 and I enjoy the IDW Sonic comics today.

 

 And that's all there is to my story I guess, glad to be here!