I’d like to share how I discovered Sonic and my personal take on SEGA as a gamer from China.
In China, Sonic was once a much bigger name. But today, many younger players may not even recognize him. Twenty years ago, most of us couldn’t afford original SEGA hardware. Instead, we played MD/Genesis games through a VCD player called “Xin Tian Li.” Here’s the interesting part: the machine actually had a legitimate license from SEGA—but it was licensed as a VCD player, not a game console. The company behind it then flooded the market with pirated MD game discs, and quietly turned a blind eye to users running them on the machine. Most players at the time had no idea about any of this—they just knew they could play Sonic on this weird VCD player, and that was enough.
That’s how an entire generation of Chinese gamers got their first taste of Sonic—through a gray-area loophole that we didn’t even know was a loophole.
Pirated or not, those memories are precious to me. Sonic felt completely different from anything else—high-speed side-scrolling action was mind-blowing at the time. Later, when I grew up and learned about the development stories behind those classics, I gained even more respect for the creativity and craft of the original teams. To this day, I’ve purchased over a dozen officially licensed Sonic games.
So why isn’t Sonic as big in China? I think one major reason is that SEGA deliberately positioned Sonic as Mario’s edgy rival—“Mario is for kids, Sonic is for older players.” That marketing worked in some regions, but in China, the post-MD era left a gap. Most players never got hands-on with later Sonic titles, and over time, they gravitated toward other franchises. For example, Persona 5 Royal has a huge meme status here—“P5R is the greatest JRPG ever” is practically gospel among fans.
That said, I’m still grateful to Sonic. He gave me a new perspective on gaming: face your fears, keep running forward, and never look back.
A friend of mine once put it this way: “SEGA always starts with a brilliant, sky-high concept, but the execution often falls just short of greatness. It’s not that the games are bad—they’re always missing that little extra something.”
One small regret: I ordered a limited-edition artist-collaboration plush toy—the “SEGA Sonic × Kosuke Kawamura” collectible. But it hasn’t arrived yet. Seeing the promo images just makes me want it even more!
Happy 35th, Sonic. Keep running.
I find the fact that this franchise has persisted in spite of so many colossal fuckups, both from games and management at SEGA, morbidly inspiring.
You’d think that putting the devs of Sonic X-Treme through hell and back (fuck Yuji Naka btw, hope he rots in prison) only to cancel the game and miss the Saturn launch window would’ve been the nail in the coffin, but nope, the series still kept going.
You’d think Sega declaring bankruptcy and bowing out of the console race to become third-party would’ve capped off the Sonic series, but no, it still kept going.
Then you look at the dark age: Sonic Heroes being a launch third-party title with Iizuka nearly putting himself in the hospital a la Sakurai with Melee. And then Shadow the Hedgehog AKA “Sonic with guns”. Then Sonic the Hedgehog GBA being a shit-tier port that was so bad it catapulted Taxman into relevancy.
All culminating in what is still considered the worst Sonic game to date: Sonic 06, the game that was so fucking atrociously put together with half the team (the other half working on Sonic and the Secret Rings for Wii just because they couldn’t get 06 running on the Wii) that it caused Yuki Naka to leave Sega, spawned various memes and was the start of many people getting into Youtuber game reviews, and solidified in the general conscious that, to quote IGN: “Sonic was never good”. I personally think this is the lowest point of the series, being rivaled only by the WiiU era, which I’ll get to.
But miraculously, that damn blue hedgehog just. kept. GOING!
And I think here is where the series started to see a turnaround, objectively, despite some additional issues:
Sonic Unleashed released, and though many reviewers dogged on the Werehog gameplay, many of those same reviewers praised the high-octane gameplay of the daytime stages, and I think to this day, Sonic Unleashed is the best a Sonic game has ever looked in terms of presentation. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more excited seeing Sonic gameplay than waking up that one morning to see the Abadat trailer for Unleashed: The music was upbeat, the gameplay shown was energetic, the visuals were gorgeous and bright. Unleashed was the first game I watched a Let’s Play of from beginning to end (thanks, Antdude!).
And that hedgehog kept going, and for once I felt somewhat positive about it.
Side note: Sonic Chronicles released, and while I did enjoy my first playthrough of it appreciating all the fan-service, I think this was the culmination of Sega not giving a shit about writing in external Sonic media that led to them enforcing the infamous mandates after being sued by fucKen Penders. I was really sad to learn that his lawsuit, and additional lawsuits by other Archie writers, Sega and Archie’s corporate Incompetence notwithstanding, effectively killed any further potential in telling Sonic stories with deep and personal themes. I genuinely don’t think we’ll see a Sonic RPG (on the level of Chronicles) ever again, nor will we see any Sonic comic that matches the depth and emotion of the post issue 160 era of the Archie comics (yes, that includes IDW and its lost potential, more on that later).
Sonic Colors was the return to form I think the series was in dire need of for the past decade, despite what time and the updated crapjob port might argue: A simpler story, a more varied environment through Eggman’a Incredible Interstellar Amusement Park, and gameplay that, while was mostly 2D, incorporated the Color Powers in ways that we haven’t seen since that made levels explorable.
Sonic Generations perfected the boost formula and mixture of 2D/3D gameplay both in modern Sonic’s levels and Classic Sonic’s levels, despite Classic not having 1:1 physics with the Genesis games (can you imagine how much cooler Gens could’ve been with Taxman working the 2D levels?!). I wish it was Ian Flynn working on the story originally, but hey, we eventually got our monkey’s paw wish with Sonic x Shadow Gens, with its awkward redubbing and writing on the Sonic side.
And then the hedgehog fucking stumbled yet again.
First off, fuck Nintendo and Sega for that stupid-ass WiiU exclusivity deal. Just Nintendo hooking a ball on Sega and chaining them to their failed console, and Sega just being their usual Sega self:
Mario and Sonic Olympic games fell off after London on the Wii. Sonic Lost World was fucking stupid (and the technical basis for the boost games moving forward as Forces, Frontiers, and Shadow Gens are essentially retooled Lost World physics masquerading as boost gameplay). I hate the gameplay, I hate the story, I hate that this game effectively spawned the Koopali-I mean the Deadly Six and their one-note personalities that wouldn’t show any semblance of potential until IDW and Crossworlds, and even then that’s not saying much. Literally the only good thing in this game is the Zelda DLC.
And then came Sonic Boom…the second biggest failure right behind Sonic 06. Fuck Sega and their meddling with Big Red Button and forcing them to put CryEngine on the WiiU and forcing BRB to change the story because Sega was too jingoist to allow the SPINOFF SERIES to invent a new backstory for Sonic and co. Thank god BRB made it out okay in the end, and the TV show had a decent second season before being unceremoniously cancelled.
And then sigh came Sonic Forces. A wet fart of a Sonic Generations clone with a wet fart of a story and paid Super Sonic DLC (no I don’t care if Sega made it free later, this was them getting greedy). At least Iam Flynn got to write the prequel comics that never fucking mattered in the first place.
Obviously this is where I would sing the high praises of Mania. But I’ll just say I will forever be scratching my head that Sega and Evening Star had a sequel planned and in development only the partnership to fall through. Fuck, man, that screenshot they released still hurts to look at because of all the lost potential. I still think to this day, Sega was jealous that someone outside of Japan made a better classic Sonic game than they did (fuck Sonic 4 btw).
The hedgehog kept going, into mobile and back into comics. I haven’t played all the mobile Sonic games, I’ve only played Sonic Runners before Sega ruined that game, and a bit of Sonic Jump. I’m not gonna waste more time on mobile.
IDW Sonic started out REALLY strong. I loved the Metal Overlord saga and the Metal Virus arc. My issue is that the mandates started to rear their ugly head, and these arcs should’ve come at the end of the comic’s run, because now, the comic sucks frankly. I hate how the mandates effectively killed the planned Shadow miniseries, I hate how the mandates prevent Shadow from being Bakugo 2.0/Vegeta Jr. I hate how the mandates prevent characters from being as deep as they were in the (post-160) Archie comics. I hate the mandate that prevents the Classic characters like the Hooligans, Honey, Mighty and Ray from showing up in the modern issues. I hate how the world was never really built for those early arcs to make it feel really lived in. I hate how the story arcs were cut from multiple issues to just three issues so they could be easily packaged into volumetric releases. And the pacing in these later arcs is atrocious: a nice intro issue, exciting middle issue, and then a wet fart of an ending. I started waiting until every third issue released to catch up with the series, and I’ve promised myself that if 100 is a dud, I’m dropping the series altogether. I think the only IDW comics that I’ve enjoyed from Sonic are the Classic Anniversary specials. Seasons of Chaos felt like Ian Flynn making up for not being able to finish the Mega Drive series from Archie (god, that was my favorite series from Archie). The other Anniversary specials are fine I guess, with Knuckles’ being the weakest (Superstars ruining everything once again). I hate the Fang miniseries.
Then, the hedgehog went into open-zone gameplay.
Sonic Frontiers is a game I have a love-hate relationship with. I LOVE the open zone gameplay and the potential it created for future Sonic titles. The Action Chain challenge is my gold standard for how future Sonic open-zone titles should function: run around the world, perform tricks and stunts in an alloted time to earn points and get a high rank. That degree of freedom is perfect for Sonic!
I hate everything else about the game. According to a translated tweet, Kishimoto essentially said the game was a $60 global playtest, and BOY does it feel like one. The physics are atrocious even with the updates, the Final Horizon DLC is the worst Sonic thing I’ve personally played, the story is a melodramatic nothingburger. The cyberspace levels are hot doodoo water, the puzzles are just…not puzzles, I want to personally shoot to death the person who made that fucking pinball level, I want to castrate the person who made Chaos Island, and I think this game made me hate Kishimoto personally. I wish I didn’t spend the full $60 dollars on it, because it frankly doesn’t feel worth more than $10. Damn good boss vocal themes tho.
But oddly enough, the hedgehog didn’t decide to dump everything for a new formula. In fact, the blue bastard actually took something woth potential and gasp IMPROVED ON IT?!
Yeah, Sonic x Shadow is nearly peak. Nearly because what the fuck were those rewrites on the Sonic side?! And what the fuck is up with Kishimoto not explaining crucial gameplay functions, like with Shadow’s Doom Morph and how you have to time the swinging on orbs to swing just when Shadow is directly under the orbs?! Literally killed any enjoyment I had with Chaos Island and the final boss.
But damn, Shadow’s story, while limited in scope, is what I hoped to see with Ian Flynn at the helm. Tis a great story and cinematography with subtle callbacks that aren’t so in your face like they were in Frontiers.
And the hedgehog is still going strong! Sonic Dream Team, though I can’t play it due to me not sacrificing my soul for an Apple product, looks incredible. Sonic Racing Crossworlds feels corporate as hell, but I can’t lie, the arcadey gameplay of kart racing here feels way better than $80 Kart World.
I still can’t believe Sonic also has a successful movie franchise as well! Sonic 1 felt like a good first step if you ignore the dogshit initial design reveal that once again made Sonic the ire of the general public not seen since 06. Sonic 2 improved on incorporating game aspects while admittedly doubling down on the worst aspects from the first movie to the point where I thought it was out of spite (fuck the wedding scene forever and always). The Knuckles series was the worst of this, and about what people expected the first movie to be. Then the third movie came along, trimmed the fat, and delivered a high-octane story that I always find myself wanting to revisit. I can’t wait for 4! And yes, these movies are better than Illumination’s 90-minute Mario commercials.
Overall, I feel the franchise is in the best spot culturally in and outside the gaming sphere. Sonic feels like a household name again. Kind of like an addict who finally decided that enough was enough, decided to turn their lives around with some relapses, setbacks, and stumbles along the way, but they genuinely wanted to improve, and with enough support from people in their lives who kept reminding them of the potential they once had, were able to get back on the saddle and stay on for longer than expected. While there are points where Sonic as a brand feels a bit corporate and uptight, somewhere deep down is the same radical spirit that fueled their initial successes. Here’s to 35 more years where that hedgehog still keeps going.