Name:	Sonic the Hedgehog series (8 titles) Sonic the Hedgehog Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Sonic Spinball Sonic Crackers Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Sonic and Knuckles Sonic Special Stages Sonic 3D Blast (aka Flicky's Island) Sonic Classics 3-in-1
Author/Vendor:	Sega
Released:	various
Type:	various
Language:	English
Premise:	Who would have thought that a fast-paced arcade game about a smart-alecky blue hedgehog and his efforts at preventing the evil Dr. Robotnik from mechanizing the world would have turned into the hit series that it became? The original is a legend as far as arcade games go, the sequels are for the most part just as good or better, and the venture finally provided Sega with something it desperately needed at the time - a new mascot. Every Sega plaform since has had at least one Sonic game.
Impressions:	Colorful graphics, catchy tunes, and fast gameplay are the standard hallmarks of the Sonic series. These titles remain as popular as they ever were, with each new entry adding its own particular twists. The first is a must, and so are most of the others.
Variations:	Sonic the Hedgehog (1991, the one and only original, and the game that was most responsible for the popularity of the platform - if your planned emulator can't handle this game full-screen at full speed with full sound, then don't even bother releasing it) Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992, same idea as before but adds a second player-controllable character in Tails the Fox - this was the most successful G/MD title ever produced, according to Video Gamers Online - the beta version, which has been recently unearthed, includes levels that didn't make it into the commercial release) Sonic Spinball (1993, a pinball game designed around the Sonic 3D Blast franchise that has all the visual appeal of the platform games, but somehow just doesn't wash) Sonic Crackers (1994, an in-house beta developed by Sega to test several new concepts - only two stages are playable, but this was the first Sonic 3D Blast game to employ the "bungee attack mode" that would be more fully realized in Knuckles Chaotix for the 32X - there are also other elements that were later used in the Sega CD and Saturn Sonic games) Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (1994, the last in the commercially released series of 2D platformers - not designed for speed as before, you encounter a boss at the end of every level, Sonic was redesigned to give him a more fierce look, Knuckles puts in his second appearance in a Sonic game, and has only six very large stages - the MegaDrive release apparently has some different music than the American release, such as when Knuckles first appears) Sonic and Knuckles (1994, Sonic squares off against Dr. Robotnik's newest henchman, Knuckles the enchindia - this employed a special "lock-on" pass-through design that allowed you to plug in Sonic 2 or 3 and play them as either Sonic or Knuckles - this is considered the best of the original 16-bit side scroller series) Sonic Special Stages (1994, a limited-release cart that consists of all of the special and hidden stages from Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles) Sonic 3D Blast (1996, also known as Flicky's Island in Europe - Sonic travels to the island of the Flickies to save them from Dr. Robotnik - in part inspired by old Sega platform arcade game Flicky - the first in the Sonic series to make use of isometric perspective, which takes a lot of adjustment for fans of the series) Sonic Classics 3-in-1 (1996, combines the first two Sonic Games and Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine into a single cart) Also released around the same time was Kunckles Chaotix for the 32X and Sonic CD for the Sega CD.
Recommended Emu:	KGen v0.34b (Sonic the Hedgehog) Genecyst X (rest of the series, but will have problems with interlace mode used in Sonic 2's Emerald Hill Zone, both beta and commercial)