Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic is a video game character developed by Sega Enterprises Ltd in 1990, appearing in his first game with the same name in 1991. Ever since then he has been regarded as Sega's mascot, replacing Alex Kidd from the Master System days.

Sonic is Sega's answer to Mario, attempting to be "cooler" and faster than the standard Mario gameplay. It was a huge success in the early 90s, carrying the Mega Drive/Genesis's sales up until about 1995 where it was replaced by the Sega Saturn. In later years Sonic has been considered to deteriorate, having design changes and being placed in games that are only there to make money, rather than giving the gamer an enjoyable experience.

There have been many complaint topics on MFGG about Sonic's new games, style and the constant spawn of new characters, mainly by Thunder (who also tends to hype them). This has been shown especially with the next generation Sonic Games; Sonic '2006' for the Xbox360/PS3, Sonic Wild Fire for the Wii, and Sonic Rivals for the Sony PSP. Strangely Sonic's 2D titles have been praised more, namely Sonic Rush for the Nintendo DS.

Many have considered the Sonic series to be ruined by the death and return of Shadow the Hedghog. Shadow appeared in Sonic Adventure 2 (2001) and died at the end as a sacrifice to his beloved "Maria", however he has been revived several times since for no particular reason, most times with severe cases of amnisia, and not knowing his "purpose". He has also stared in his own game "Shadow the Hedgehog" where it is mainly focused on these problems (And strangely arms him with a gun and the ability to ride bikes). Sonic 2006 marks the creation of "Silver the hedgehog", which has also been frowned upon because it is largely the same story.

"Classic" Sonic is still loved throughout the MFGG community, despite it being a Mario based forum, and he has his own similar fangaming site, SFGHQ. Many great fangames have been made using sonic also.