Today Sonic officially turns 30 years old as the original Sonic the Hedgehog for the Genesis released in North America for the first time back on June 23, 1991.

Featuring the iconic Green Hill Zone, Sonic's first outing was an instant smash hit and led to SEGA's early success in the home video game market. The launch of the game and its eventual pack-in promotion helped the Genesis overtake the Super Nintendo in sales by two to one, with SEGA later taking up to 65% of the market share.

This was the birth of a video game icon and the runaway success of Sonic finally gave SEGA the mascot they had been searching for after their previous attempts with Fantasy Zone's 'Opa Opa' and Alex Kidd.

In the 30 years that have passed, Sonic has featured in hundreds of games and collections as well as TV shows, movies, comics and merchandise, and while no new Sonic games are to be released in 2021, with the next mainline title being scheduled for release in 2022, as well as a Sonic Origins collection slated for release the same year; SEGA are instead celebrating today with the Sonic Symphony 30th Anniversary Concert featuring orchestrated renditions of classic Sonic tunes and a host of guest performers including Crush 40 and DJ Tomoya Ohtani. The live event can be watched via the YouTube video embed below.

Event starts at today at
Pacific Time: 12 PM PDT | Central Time: 2 PM CDT | Eastern Time: 3 PM EDT | British Summer Time: 8PM BST | European Time: 9 PM CEST​

What are your favourite memories of Sonic the Hedgehog growing up and what are your favourite games in the franchise? Let us know below! I for one wouldn't be where I am today had the blue blur not left the impact it did on me as I played it almost religiously during my childhood. For me, no other platform games come close to matching the pure charm, style and unrivalled control and platforming perfection that the classic Mega Drive trilogy provide.

Here's to another 30 years of Sonic!

 

[Lucaserf]

Happy birthday blue hedgehog. First experience with this bastard was with a Master System II that came with Sonic The Hedgehog on the memory (I think it was the MS II or III). Played so many hours, it was my father's video game, ended up giving the console to my cousins after winning a PS2

 

[chrisrlink]

1 hour? you automaticly die when you reach 10 minutes on the timer

 

[Julie_Pilgrim]

1 hour? you automaticly die when you reach 10 minutes on the timer

music so good it's worth 6 lives

 

[gudenau]

minus the mobile app i want this

I figured that would be better than a 3DS Chao garden. Plus it could be setup like PKMN Go to track your activity and make your Chao happy or whatever.

 

[Julie_Pilgrim]

I figured that would be better than a 3DS Chao garden. Plus it could be setup like PKMN Go to track your activity and make your Chao happy or whatever.

id rather have everything on one device instead of two

 

[BraveDragonWolf]

While Green Hill and Star Light may be obviously popular, to me Spring Yard zone seriously has that feeling somewhere in my early childhood.

 

[hippy dave]

I never properly got into Sonic honestly, it just doesn't gel naturally with my play style. I don't Gotta Go Fast, I Gotta Systematically Explore Every Nook And Cranny To Make Sure I Don't Miss Anything.

He's still a big part of video game heritage tho.

 

[Deleted member 532471]

sonic is 30 and its so amazing that it has been 15 years since a decent sonic game came out.
it has been a third of his life since they sentenced him to be stuck to green hill zone and chemical plant zone.
i clocked out after beating colors and generations, and even though i checked all the games that came out since then, it has been pretty underwhelming.

ive gotten to a point i just automatically tune out most sonic stuff.
I'll only ever get interested again if yuji naka gets involved, until then

 

[raxadian]

Take a guess:

 

[DarkCoffe64]

30 years of greatness, mediocrity and god-awful trash, happy b-day I guess, ha.
First time I ever saw Sonic was at one of my cousin's places, the megadrive version of Sonic 2. Ah, them memories...

 

[Goku1992A]

I never properly got into Sonic honestly, it just doesn't gel naturally with my play style. I don't Gotta Go Fast, I Gotta Systematically Explore Every Nook And Cranny To Make Sure I Don't Miss Anything.

He's still a big part of video game heritage tho.

The problem with Sonic they never changed the formula like how Mario did. Sonic falls into the same category as Mega man all they do is slap a new skin

 

[Foxi4]

Old school Sonic music thread, huh? Favourite zone? I'm going to be an annoying git and a contrarian. Two little words. Panic. Puppet. Act 2, on the Saturn/PC, to be specific.



There's just something about it... and you don't get to hear it remixed nowadays, kind of a forgotten tune.

As far as the OG goes, I mean... you can't beat Green Hill, right? You see one screenshot, hear one note, and you know what's up. It doesn't get more iconic than that.

 

[Julie_Pilgrim]

The problem with Sonic they never changed the formula like how Mario did. Sonic falls into the same category as Mega man all they do is slap a new skin

really? If anything, sonic's problem was that they changed the formula wayyyy too much
sonic adventure 1 and 2 were kinda like the 2d games but in a 3d space(they threw away this idea after 2 games), sonic heroes had a team mechanic (they threw away this idea immediately) shadow the hedgehog had a morality mechanic+ gunplay(they threw away this idea immediately) the storybook games were... something(you get the drill, idea in the trash) sonic lost world had a gravity mechanic(take a wild guess what they did with this idea) sonic colors introduced the boost(believe it or not they actually kept this idea)

 

[Crazystato]

I thought it came out for the master system first? I swear I had it built in.

 

[BitMasterPlus]

For realz tho, some of the best Sonic music has to be in Sonic CD

 

[slaphappygamer]

There should be a movie. So epic!

 

[Deleted member 471305]

My most cherished Sonic memory is being scarred for life by that one Flash animation where Sonic bleeds out of his ass and drowns to death in his own ass blood... and the Sonic Heroes demo was pretty cool.

 

[Julie_Pilgrim]

My most cherished Sonic memory is being scarred for life by that one Flash animation where Sonic bleeds out of his ass and drowns to death in his own ass blood... and the Sonic Heroes demo was pretty cool.

i am disgusted but also intrigued

 

[Arras]

Had to pick Green Hill zone because marble zone sucks and made it so that I practically never got to see anything after it. Honestly I don't think sonic 1 is a good game, though 2 and 3 seem like massive improvements.

 

[MaxToTheMax]

Sonic is the reason I'm a furry. Thanks, Yuji Naka.