Sonic the Hedgehog (video game)

This page is about the 16-bit 1991 game. For the 8-bit game, see Sonic the Hedgehog (8-bit). For the 2006 game, see Sonic the Hedgehog (2006 video game).

Sonic the Hedgehog, often times called Sonic 1, is the first video game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series. It was made by Sonic Team and published by Sega for the Sega Mega Drive in 1991. It has many sequels and spin-offs. In the same year, Ancient made a 8 bit version the Master System and Game Gear.

Sonic the Hedgehog
Developer(s)	Sonic Team
Publisher(s)	Sega
Director(s)	Yuji Naka
Producer(s)	Shinobu Toyoda
Designer(s)	Hirokazu Yasuhara
Programmer(s)	Yuji Naka
Artist(s)	Naoto Ohshima Jina Ishiwatari Rieko Kodama
Composer(s)	Masato Nakamura
Series	Sonic the Hedgehog
Platform(s)	Sega Genesis Game Boy Advance Microsoft Windows Nintendo 3DS iOS Android Amazon Fire TV Apple TV Nintendo Switch
Release	June 23, 1991 Sega Genesis June 23, 1991 PAL Game Boy AdvanceNA November 14, 2006 Microsoft WindowsWW October 26, 2010 Nintendo 3DS May 15, 2013 WW iOS May 15, 2013 NA AndroidWW May 16, 2013 Nintendo SwitchWW September 20, 2018
Genre(s)	Platform
Mode(s)	Single-player

Plot

In order to steal six Chaos Emeralds, Dr. Ivo Robotnik traps the animals from South Island in robots. The player controls Sonic, whose goal is to free the animals and retrieve the emeralds. If the player collects them all, the game will have a good ending. If the player does not succeed, the bad ending will show Robotnik keeping the emeralds for himself.

Development

In 1989, Sega began development on the Sega Mega Drive. They needed a video game character to compete with Nintendo's Mario. Sega began a competition for their employees to make a character to rival Mario. Concepts included a man with resemblence to Mario's outfit and Bart Simpson's head, a Japanese ancient warrior, and a jester with a puppet in hand. It came down to 4 concepts by Naoto Ohshima. The man mentioned above, a man in pajamas with a large mustache and resemblence to Theodore Roosevelt, a hedgehog with arms and legs and conjoined eyes, and a grey rabbit that could grab with his ears. It obviously boiled down to the hedgehog becoming Sonic, and the mustached-man becoming Dr. Ivo Robotnik. There were more scrapped ideas including a human female love interest for the hedgehog, and Sonic fighting living monster alien creatures instead of the robots we are used to. These concepts were scrapped to strangely avoid resemblence to 1985's Super Mario Bros.. At Tokyo Toy Show 1990, a prototype for Sonic the Hedgehog was shown. Only magazine photos exist to prove that it's real.