It honestly doesn't feel like Sonic the Hedgehog should already be 35 years old, but here we are. The original game launched all the way back in 1991, and while plenty of franchises from that era have either disappeared or become something we only hear from every few years, Sonic has somehow managed to stick around through just about every major change the industry has gone through. He's gone from 2D to 3D, survived SEGA leaving the console business, experimented with several different styles of gameplay, and eventually became a movie star on top of everything else. There are even kids growing up with Sonic right now who probably met him through the movies before they ever touched one of his games, which is pretty wild when you think about where all of this started.
However, looking back at Sonic's 35-year history, I think it's easy to focus so heavily on the character himself that we overlook how much the franchise actually helped influence the video game industry at large. Sonic obviously didn't single-handedly create every trend that followed, but his influence can be seen in everything from how movement is handled in games to how publishers market major releases and think about their biggest characters as brands. In celebration of Sonic's 35th anniversary, GameRant was given the opportunity to hear from SEGA's Ivo Gerscovich and Marcella Churchill, along with longtime Sonic creative officer Takashi Iizuka, about that history. And after going through everything they had to say, Sonic's impact goes quite a bit further than making platformers go fast.
Obviously, I don't think anyone needs me to explain that speed is kind of Sonic's thing. It's been central to the franchise from the very beginning, but Iizuka's explanation of why it works actually gets at something I think Sonic deserves more credit for. The original games weren't simply about giving players an incredibly fast character to control. The fun came from eventually learning those levels well enough that moving through them quickly became its own reward.
That's a design philosophy we see all over games now, especially in platformers where getting somewhere isn't nearly as important as how good it feels to get there. Iizuka specifically pointed toward modern platformers and indie games that reward players for eventually finding their own flow through a stage, something he believes Sonic helped push forward:
Sonic helped show that simply moving through a world can be an experience, not just a way of getting from one challenge to the next.
I actually think that's a much better way to explain Sonic's influence than simply pointing to speed, because Iizuka doesn't believe speed on its own is particularly interesting anyway. In fact, when asked what developers tend to misunderstand when trying to build an entire game around going fast, he said that's pretty much the problem. Making a character fast is easy, but making that speed enjoyable is another matter entirely.
In my opinion, developers tend to misunderstand that speed on its own is not necessarily fun. It's easy to make a character move fast, but creating a game that feels fast is a much bigger challenge. Players need to be able to read the environment, make meaningful decisions, and feel in control of their actions. If speed comes at the expense of clarity or control, it can quickly become frustrating rather than exciting.
Sonic has never just been about being fast but about giving players a chance to learn how to be as efficient and effective as possible when they're moving quickly. Iizuka described it as the relationship between speed and mastery. You play a stage, start learning where everything is, figure out a better route, and eventually get to the point where you're flying through areas that probably slowed you down the first time around. The speed is satisfying because players know what they're doing with it. Of course, that became a much bigger problem once Sonic suddenly had another dimension to worry about.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://gamerant.com/sonic-the-hedgehog-35th-anniversary-gaming-industry-impact/
