Much like Redeads from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the drowning music from Sonic the Hedgehog taught an entire generation what anxiety is.

Origins takes the Christian Whitehead Android/iOS ports and places them on modern day consoles for the first time with all of the updates and features they brought, plus the addition of the drop dash mechanic from Sonic Mania. Going fast appeals to my lizard brain, and Origins was a great excuse to break into some 2D Sonic platforming skills to clear Green Hill Zone in under a minute.įans of the franchise may remember that 1, CD, and 2 each got iOS and Android ports, which were extremely competent and offered new unlockables like Tails in Sonic 1 and CD. These are less games based on speed, and they do a lot more to reward game knowledge and skill by maintaining player momentum, which can appeal to the part of the brain that lights up for a dog when they stick their head out of a moving car’s window. As Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, players will run, fly, and glide their way through a ton of imaginative stages filled with enemy robots and traps to overcome. For the uninitiated, these are all fast-moving 2D platformers with a strong emphasis on momentum and learning the environments.

In the package of Sonic Origins you have four games: Sonic 1, CD, 2, and 3 and Knuckles. The SatAM cartoon, a strange OVA featuring Knuckles in a hat, the 90s was a phenomenal place for Sonic the Hedgehog- and Sonic Origins is a callback to that time when the character was on top of the world. The 90s and early 00s were a fantastic time for blue characters in media, and I loved them all. Sonic was the greatest icon of my childhood in a time where all the coolest heroes were blue, from Mega Man, to Sonic, to Cortana, to Nightcrawler, and even Bob from ReBoot. Not to the extent of coming up with my own “original character, do not steal,” but enough that I’ve gone out of my way to play every single localized Sonic the Hedgehog game in the series long, long history. Welcome to Save State, where I’m as much of a Sonic fan as you can be without being a furry.

Windows 98 zone sonic