Top 5 Sonic Games

With everyone’s favourite hedgehog celebrating his 19th birthday last week, I took the time to reflect on the games that have defined this iconic character. SONIC BOOM!

5.Sonic The Hedgehog (2006)

The game that brought Sonic to the next gen revolution. In 2006 this game was slated on every angle by gamers and reviewers alike. However I rather enjoyed this title. Given the camera angles were horrible and the controls were a little sticky. But the game gave me many hours of gaming time that I enjoyed. There are several reasons for my enjoyment of this game. Firstly is the amazing sense of speed. Those levels where Sonic put on his serious face and ran as fast as he could meant the shit was going down and god did those levels deliver for me. Nothing like chasing after an exploding train to save the damsel in distress. Another thing that made this title amazing for me was the introduction of the new character Silver. I loved the whole concept of Silver including the way he wanted to kill Sonic to save the future. This leads me onto my last point. The story in this game was the best I have ever seen in a Sonic game. It was dark, gripping and quite frankly made it feel like a anime as opposed to a regular storyline. Eggman trying to take over the world but releasing a god that will destroy the world if our hero’s don’t succeed? I mean (spoiler alert!) Sonic dying!?! Mental! The thing is this game won me over with the story (and the fact I love Sonic) to the point where I ignored the game-play and camera angles just to find out what would happen to my favourite hero and my favourite anti-hero (Shadow).

4.Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood

In 2008 Sonic leapt onto the Nintendo DS with a blazing homing attack. The action based RPG dealt with The Dark Brotherhood of Echidnas trying to destroy the world that Sonic knows and loves. With the support of his arch nemesis Dr.Eggman, Sonic and the gang had to team up to stop The Brotherhood and uncover the secret of what really happened to the echidnas, putting Knuckles through an emotional rollercoaster at the same time. The controls were innovative, the graphics were fantastic and the touch screen battle scenes massively resembled Final Fantasy except with massively interactive touch screen prompts. Everything was so customisable to the point where it never got boring. After picking a team of 4 characters from a roster of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Cream, Omega, Shadow, Rouge, Big and new character Shade, you go out to kick Brotherhood ass. Different combinations of characters led to different moves. You have single moves, then fusion moves with other characters. There are even 3 way moves that deal with your enemies quickly and decisively. In the end Sonic ran into the RPG genre as quickly as Sonic runs anywhere and left his trademark all over the genre. This game is amazing and will always be a classic in the fantastic world of Sonic The Hedgehog.

3.Sonic Adventure 2

Welcome Shadow The Hedgehog. You are now officially introduced to the Sonic series and to me as my favourite character. This game set the Sonic series back in motion. When a strange hedgehog that looks like Sonic is caught on CCTV committing crimes, Sonic is arrested. After proving his innocence by revealing Shadow as the thief even more events are set into motion. By the end of our adventure the two hero’s must stop the space colony ark from falling into the world after Robotnik’s evil plan is realised. The game offered fantastic game play that we had not seen anything like previously and smashed its way onto consoles as an all time classic.

2. Sonic The Hedgehog

The game that started it all this game redefined gaming in the 90’s. The speed, the side scrolling and the entire concept grasped the hearts of gamers to the point where Sonic became the icon he is today. Everything from the soundtrack to the graphics were spot on at the time, so much so that the theme tune is my ringtone to this day. The thing that made this so iconic for so many gamers is that we spent hours of our childhood playing it to the point where we knew where every little enemy was and ever extra life. There’s nothing more therapeutic than timing your jump so you bounce off every little robot fishy that intends to rip your legs off. At the end of the day this game is my second favourite of all time, leading up to my first…

1. Sonic The Hedgehog 2

The only sequel that I feel has bettered the original in every way. It offered everything the classic did but built upon it. Then there was the introduction of the next character to become a iconic symbol in our childhood. He’s cute, he’s cuddly, he’s a tiny bit annoying but god knows he can pilot a jet. Tails ‘Miles’ Prower. The best part of Tails was that every missile that was shot at you, was taken in the ‘tails’ by loveable Tails. The point is the game didn’t need fancy AI systems that are used in games such as Army of Two or Resident Evil 5. Tails did exactly what you wanted when you wanted and the game really just did everything the first one did better. Easily my favourite game of all time.

What do you think? Is Sonic at the end of his gaming reign? Or do you still love and hold onto the little guy? What are your top 5 games of his? Let me know and I will do a feature on them. Comment below or email me at jack@push-start.co.uk.