I'd like to share how I discovered Sonic and my personal take on SEGA as a gamer from China.
In China, Sonic was once a much bigger name. But today, many younger players may not even recognize him. Twenty years ago, most of us couldn't afford original SEGA hardware. Instead, we played MD/Genesis games through a VCD player called "Xin Tian Li." Here's the interesting part: the machine actually had a legitimate license from SEGA—but it was licensed as a VCD player, not a game console. The company behind it then flooded the market with pirated MD game discs, and quietly turned a blind eye to users running them on the machine. Most players at the time had no idea about any of this—they just knew they could play Sonic on this weird VCD player, and that was enough.
That's how an entire generation of Chinese gamers got their first taste of Sonic—through a gray-area loophole that we didn't even know was a loophole.
Pirated or not, those memories are precious to me. Sonic felt completely different from anything else—high-speed side-scrolling action was mind-blowing at the time. Later, when I grew up and learned about the development stories behind those classics, I gained even more respect for the creativity and craft of the original teams. To this day, I've purchased over a dozen officially licensed Sonic games.
So why isn't Sonic as big in China? I think one major reason is that SEGA deliberately positioned Sonic as Mario's edgy rival—"Mario is for kids, Sonic is for older players." That marketing worked in some regions, but in China, the post-MD era left a gap. Most players never got hands-on with later Sonic titles, and over time, they gravitated toward other franchises. For example, Persona 5 Royal has a huge meme status here—"P5R is the greatest JRPG ever" is practically gospel among fans.
That said, I'm still grateful to Sonic. He gave me a new perspective on gaming: face your fears, keep running forward, and never look back.
A friend of mine once put it this way: "SEGA always starts with a brilliant, sky-high concept, but the execution often falls just short of greatness. It's not that the games are bad—they're always missing that little extra something."
One small regret: I ordered a limited-edition artist-collaboration plush toy—the "SEGA Sonic × Kosuke Kawamura" collectible. But it hasn't arrived yet. Seeing the promo images just makes me want it even more!
Happy 35th, Sonic. Keep running.
I literally played my first Sonic game in a child's dentist waiting room. It was Sonic Adventure 2 on gamecube. The next game I played was literally the Sonic Mega Collection for same console because my grandpa thought me and my brothers would love it. Yeah, I was the only one to fall in love with it. So, growing up, I had Sonic Rush on DS, Riders Zero Gravity and Sonic 4 episode 1 on wii, Secret Rings, Sonic The Hedgehog ( Sonic '06 ), Sonic Generations on xbox360, Unleashed on PS2 and xbox360 marketplace, Sonic Adventure DX on xbox marketplace, and Sega Superstar Tennis if you wanna include that game that came with the original family xbox360 we had.
Nowadays I don't have all of those titles anymore, but my collection is more impressive. I got a Sega Genesis with Sonic 1-3 with lock-on Knuckled adaptor and Sonic Spinball. I also have a Dreamcast and a Japanese copy of Sonic Adventure ( which breaks my personal rule of not buying imported games if possible ). Got Sonic Heroes on PS2. I also broke down at one point and bought Sonic Frontiers for my switch. The rest of the games I have that aren't physical copies are Sonic Generations ( before I even knew they were making x Shadow ), Origins, Mania, Sonic 4 episodes 1+2, and Sonic Lost World on Steam. Other than the games listed in this paragraph, I don't legally own any other Sonic titles currently, besides Sonic on GameGear ( no console to play it currently ).
Sonic has been a constant throughout my whole life, so I owe a lot of childhood memories to that franchise. The anime/cartoons, too. Found out about the anime around the early 2010s and really liked it. Then when netflix got the two DIC 90s cartoons, I eventually found out about them and love both of them to this day. I knew of a Sonic cartoon because of old school youtube poop videos, but I was too young and dumb to figure out where to find them online back then because I was still a dumb kid. We don't talk about Sonic Underground. It is fine, but simultaneously a disappointment, IMO.
Currently, I have zero official Sonic merch or any physical merch outside a hang up thing my brother got me for Christmas a year or two ago. Pretty sure it might use some genAI art because one hand that looks atrociously like the graphic designer didn't have a clue what a hand looks like and has a weird, seemingly impossible pose I'd expect to see from a clanker. Would get rid of it, but it's a gift from my brother. Absolutely waiting to see if in the future I can get a specific vintage Tails plushie that I cannot remember the exact one right now.
Speaking of characters, I am an absolute sucker for the DIC brown furred 4 year old Tails, either show and either Tails. The Tails who gets in the way more because he isn't a kid genius Tails. The absolute most innocent Tails. As much as I dislike kids, I would sacrifice myself for that Tails. That specific Tails is by a very wide margin my absolute favorite character. Followed by regular Tails being my favorite, with Blaze ( purely for design and heavy Sonic Rush bias ) as a very close third.
Despite how bad a lot of Sonic games are, I still find myself loving almost all the games I play. The one Sonic Boom game I played on 3DS thanks to hShop and that one infinite runner mobile game from a decade ago not included because they suck. Same thing applies specifically to the Sonic Lost World special stages on 3DS. I also have played the one Sonic car racer on wii, but I don't like the car racer spin-off games when compared to the Riders spin-offs ( Free Riders excluded because I have never played and probably never will because I couldn't justify kinect for a single game ).
So, needless to say, the series has become a symbol of comfort and security for me. Probably to a somewhat unhealthy degree. It's more than just a game franchise made by a company that would absolutely bankrupt itself if given infinite money. It's more than just a blue hedgehog running from adventure to adventure. It's more than just a colourful cast of characters. It's kinda become this very key part of my identity and who I am as a whole.