Sonic the Hedgehog (1991 video game)
is a 1991 platform game developed and published by Sega for the Sega Genesis. It was released in PAL regions on June 21, North America two days later on June 23 and in Japan the following month. The player controls Sonic, a hedgehog who can run at supersonic speeds. The story follows Sonic as he aims to foil the mad scientist Doctor Eggman's plans to seek the powerful Chaos Emeralds. The gameplay involves collecting rings as a form of health, and a simple control scheme, with jumping and attacking controlled by a single button.
Development began in 1990 when Sega ordered its developers to create a game featuring a mascot for the company. The developers chose a blue hedgehog designed by Naoto Ohshima after he won an internal character design contest, and named themselves Sonic Team to match their character. It uses a novel technique that allows Sonic's sprite to roll along curved scenery which was based on a concept by Oshima from 1989. Sonic the Hedgehog, designed for fast gameplay, was influenced by games by the Mario creator, Shigeru Miyamoto. The music was composed by Masato Nakamura, bassist of the J-pop band Dreams Come True.
Sonic the Hedgehog received positive reviews for its visuals, audio and gameplay and is widely considered one of the greatest video games. It sold over 40 million copies across all platforms, becoming one of the best-selling video games. On the Genesis, which it was bundled with, it sold over 15 million copies, making it the best-selling Genesis game. It established the Genesis as a key player in the 16-bit era and made it competitive with the Super NES. It has been ported to multiple systems and inspired several clones, a successful franchise, and adaptations into other media. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was released in 1992.
Gameplay
Sonic the Hedgehog is a platform game where players control the titular character Sonic, who is tasked with defeating Doctor Robotnik and obtaining the six Chaos Emeralds. The game takes place from a side-scrolling perspective. He is capable of running at high speed through levels that include springs, slopes, bottomless pits and vertical loops. The levels are populated with robot enemies, inside which Dr. Eggman has trapped animals; destroying a robot frees the animal, but is not necessary to complete the game. His primary form of offense is a spin attack, in which he curls into a ball and spins his body, damaging enemies and certain obstacles upon collision. This may be performed by jumping or rolling.Scattered around each level are gold rings that can grant Sonic protection from a single enemy or hazard as well as an extra life if 100 are collected. Also scattered throughout the level are canisters containing power-ups such as additional rings and temporary invincibility. Signposts act as checkpoints where Sonic can respawn after losing a life.
The game is split into six principal zones, followed by a short Final Zone. Each main zone has its own visual style, and while some enemies appear throughout, each zone has unique enemies and obstacles. Each main zone is split into three acts, all of which must be completed. At the end of each main zone's third act, the player confronts Dr. Eggman for a boss fight. For most of the fights, Eggman's vehicle is fitted with different weapons. After completing the sixth zone, the player continues to the single-level Final Zone for a last encounter with Eggman inside a large machine environment. A brief animation shows Sonic's return to the first zone, with animals liberated from Dr. Eggman.
Reaching the end of any zone's Act 1 or Act 2 with 50 rings will cause a large ring to appear through which Sonic can jump to enter a bonus stage. In them, Sonic is continually curled up in his Spin Attack animation, and bounces off the bumpers and walls of a fully rotating maze. In these levels, the player earns a number of continues for each multiple of 50 rings collected, but the main goal is to obtain the Chaos Emerald hidden within the maze. Colliding with any of the blocks marked "GOAL" ends the level.
Plot
In his attempt to steal the six Chaos Emeralds and harness their power, the mad scientist Doctor Eggman has trapped the animal inhabitants of South Island inside aggressive robots and stationary metal capsules. A hedgehog named Sonic aims to thwart Eggman's plans by freeing his animal friends and collecting the emeralds himself. If Sonic collects all the Chaos Emeralds and completes the game, an ending sequence is shown. If all the emeralds are not collected, Eggman taunts the player while juggling any of the Chaos Emeralds not collected by the player in an alternate ending.Development
Background and character design
In the 1980s, Sega had limited success with Genesis ports of its arcade games, but wanted a stronger foothold against its main competitor, Nintendo. In 1988, Sega of Japan began an in-house competition to create a rival to Nintendo's mascot Mario. For the next three years, programmers and designers at Sega worked on a brand character to rival Mario. In 1990, Sega ordered its in-house development studios to develop a game featuring a mascot for the company. Sega's president Hayao Nakayama wanted a character as iconic as Mickey Mouse.Conception of Sonic the Hedgehog began in November 1989, when character designer Naoto Ohshima was working on another project titled Twin Stars. The story focused on a pair of twin brothers from the Dream World defending it against the boss of the Nightmare World, "Thirteen." The game was to feature smooth terrain and loops that the characters would run through. While the gameplay concept was approved by Ohshima's superiors, the characters were not, leaving Ohshima to come up with a new protagonist.
The team developed ideas for characters, an engine, and gameplay mechanics. Development emphasized speed, so Sega considered fast creatures such as kangaroos and squirrels and eliminated designs not associated with fast animals. One idea, a rabbit able to grasp objects with prehensile ears, showed promise but was too complex for the Genesis hardware. The team narrowed its search to animals that could roll into a ball, their idea for an attacking move, and considered armadillos and hedgehogs. The hedgehog character, proposed by employee Naoto Ohshima, prevailed. Ohshima went on vacation to New York, taking sketches with him. He went to Central Park and asked locals for their opinions on them, and Sonic was the favorite. A man with a moustache, who eventually became Dr. Robotnik, was in second place.
Sonic was originally teal-colored, then a light shade of blue, but he was changed to dark blue so he would stand out against certain backgrounds and to match the Sega logo. According to Ohshima, Sonic's basic design was created by combining Felix the Cat's head with Mickey Mouse's body. His shoes had buckles through the inspiration of Michael Jackson's boots on the album cover for Bad and the red and white color scheme of Santa Claus, whom Ohshima saw as the most "famous character in the world". Sonic's spikes were emphasized to make him sleeker, and he was given the ability to spin while jumping. The new character was originally named "Mr. Hedgehog", but the eight-member team changed his name to "Sonic" and took the nickname Sonic Team. According to Yuji Naka, Sonic Team was a one-time unofficial nickname for the studio within Sega that was used during the development of the game; it was never mentioned again on the division's releases until Ohshima-directed and Naka-produced Nights into Dreams was released in 1996. The name would permanently stay when its successor Sega AM8 was spun off as Sonic Team Co., Ltd. in 2000.
Ohshima said that "Sonic" was chosen because it represented speed. Ideas proposed to flesh out the character included placing him in a rock band, giving him vampire fangs, and giving him a human girlfriend named Madonna. Sega of America scrapped these ideas to keep his identity simple. Sega of America also expressed concerns that most Americans would not know what a hedgehog is. According to Mark Cerny, who worked in Tokyo as an intermediary between the Japanese and American Sega offices, the American staff felt the character was "unsalvageable". They made plans to educate Sonic Team on character design with the work of Will Vinton, the creator of the California Raisins. They proposed a full-scale recreation of the character, but compromised with Sonic Team to simply make design changes for western audiences. The antagonist was named "Dr. Eggman" in Japan and "Dr. Robotnik" in other regions as a result of a dispute between Sega's American and Japanese divisions.
Concept and programming
With a satisfying protagonist established, Sega turned to programmer Yuji Naka, who had impressed executives with his work on Phantasy Star and the Genesis port of Ghouls 'n Ghosts. Naka was a fan of Super Mario Bros. but wanted something faster, so the game was made to play quickly, which was where he focused most of his effort. Production on Sonic the Hedgehog officially began in April 1990 and lasted about 14 months. Naka explained that the reason he wanted a fast game was that he had ported Ghouls 'n Ghosts, and wanted to work on its movement but found it slow.Sonic the Hedgehog was developed by a team of seven at Sega R&D9: two programmers, two sound engineers, and three designers, although it began with just Ohshima and Naka. People came onto the team as the need for content increased. After being assigned a project with the code name "Defeat Mario", Ohshima and Naka began work, but encountered problems: Ohshima's Rabbit proved hard to program. Catching items and throwing them caused the action's rhythm to break. Naka stated that the rabbit was not suitable for his game engine, and he also wanted the game to be playable with only one button. Hirokazu Yasuhara came onto the team to supervise Ohshima and Naka and develop levels. He became the lead designer due to his greater experience, and found the way to make the game playable with only one button by having Sonic do damage by jumping. The trio came up with the idea of him rolling into a ball. After the hedgehog character was chosen, many characters were redrawn, and the team agreed on the environments' visual complexity, with particular focus on the colors. After this, four people came onto the team to speed development up.
Due to the popularity of Mario, Naka wanted Sonic to take over the American market. Sonic's default speed was set to that of Mario while running. Tests were run using the Genesis' tool library, and problems such as flickering, slow frame rates, and shaky animation soon became apparent. Increasing Sonic's speed caused animation problems. Naka solved this by developing an algorithm which retained fluidity. All that was left was to optimize of the game speed to adhere to the staff's expectations. The team noticed that different people had different perceptions of the game's speed: some believed it was too fast, which caused disagreements. As a result, it was slowed down.
The loop running was implemented in a tech demo by Naka, who developed an algorithm allowing a sprite to move smoothly on a curve by determining its position with a dot matrix. Naka's prototype was a platform game with a fast-moving character rolling in a ball through a long, winding tube, and this concept was fleshed out with Ohshima's character designs and levels by Yasuhara. Sonic the Hedgehog was unveiled at the Tokyo Toy Show, held between June 7–10, 1990. At this point, Sonic was only able to "run at high speed on a slightly wavy track." As so little was done at the time, the team wanted to try and "bluff" their way through the demo, making the game look far more polished than it actually was. Yasuhara originally intended to work on the game for three months due to the delay of his planned move to the United States by the outbreak of the Gulf War, but was engrossed in the project for nearly a year. His designs for levels were intended to attract both hardcore and casual gamers by integrating occasional challenging set pieces into mostly accessible level design. The color scheme was influenced by the work of pop artist Eizin Suzuki, and the aesthetics of Green Hill were influenced by the geography of California.
In designing the gameplay, Naka was inspired by Nintendo employee and Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto, whose games he had enjoyed playing years earlier. Admiring the simplicity of Miyamoto's mechanics in complex environments, Naka decided that Sonic would be controlled with only a directional pad for movement and a single button for jumping. He also wanted his creation to be more action-oriented than the Mario series; while playing Super Mario Bros., he had wondered why the levels could not be cleared more quickly.
Ohshima, Naka and Yasuhara worked 19 hours a day on the project for several months. Due to the need to demonstrate the Genesis' technological prowess, the game underwent extensive testing and redesign, which took over six months. According to Naka, the game had the fastest-ever character speed in a video game and a rotation effect in the bonus stages that had been considered impossible on the console.
The team intended to add a two-player mode displayed via split-screen, but Naka's programming knowledge was insufficient to implement it. A two-player mode appeared in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, whereby the second player controls Sonic's sidekick Miles "Tails" Prower. Sonic Team also intended to include a sound test with animations of Sonic breakdancing to a band of animal characters, including a crocodile keyboardist who was later introduced into the series as Vector the Crocodile in Knuckles' Chaotix in 1995. The sound test was scrapped for time reasons and Naka used the freed up memory to add the iconic "Se-ga!" chant used in TV commercials as a startup sound.
Naka's relationship with Sega was tenuous during this time, and he received little credit for his work. He left the company shortly after the game's release, although Sega of America hired him later. Before leaving, however, he defied Sega's prohibition of developer credits by displaying a few names in black text on a black background, identifiable only by looking at the code. Naka stated that level design was a major challenge: he created maps much wider than normal and tried to ensure players would not get lost. It took him around eight months to develop Green Hill Zone as he kept restarting from scratch. He stated that he found the process "very interesting". Throughout the rest of 1990, work on the game was behind closed doors. Sega of Japan instead promoted the upcoming title in other ways. In the November 1990 issue of Sega Players Enjoy Club, a brief "interview" with Sonic was published, establishing his attitude and his birthplace of Christmas Island. Naka also stated that the team was trying to create smooth maps, and that implementing looping structures was a challenge because Sonic would break through them instead of running around them. The backgrounds were also a challenge, as the game's speed created the impression of going backwards. The zones were based on designs by Naka and Ohshima, with the goal of creating the world's fastest action game. According to Ohshima, Robotnik was based on Humpty Dumpty.
Yasuhara wanted the game to appeal to both Japanese and American players, which was why Green Hill Zone was redesigned many times. Sonic Team wanted the level to portray the character correctly. Its checkered ground was inspired by 3D image rendering from computers, an idea Naka obtained from Sega developer Yu Suzuki, who used this technique with Space Harrier. The team read Famitsu to stay informed of what their rivals were doing so they could avoid their mistakes.