My favorite Games of All-Time #3: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - Originally published on 1UP - August 11, 2006

Welcome back to the countdown. Sorry for the week off but as you can understand I've been a little busy catching up on work and everything. The focus is back on the list though! I wonder if I should shoot off some fireworks or something now that I have reached the final 3?

These are the games that define me, the games that I consider my favorite of all-time.

Number three is a lock. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 by Yuji Naka and Sonic Team. Yuji is the only man to make the list twice and both times in the top-10. He really put Sega on the map as far as console gaming goes. Yu Suzuki may be the undefeated Sega arcade champ but his work on home consoles falls short of Yuji's. Don't even tell me that Shenmue was better than anything Naka did because it would be a lie.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 may be the greatest Sega platform game ever. Perhaps you think I have a bias against Nintendo, seeing as how Zelda, Link, Mario and Metroid don't make my list. Kid Ikarus almost did. To me Sonic was the Mario game reduced. That shouldn't make me a Nintendo hater.

Super Mario Bros. was fun for it's day, but each consecutive Mario game felt like the previous one. Levels were always stacked, plain, Mario went left to right and on occasion donned suits that game him special powers. Still, each world, each level felt like the last with minor changes to the color palette. We were growing up but it felt like Mario was not.

I don't believe the hype in Sonic as a character with 'tude meant for the jaded Nintendo gamers.

The Sonic games were boiled down into far more basic components than Mario. You only used one button in the series and it worked. It worked because Sonic had only basic attacks. It worked because the levels were organic and lent themselves to simple attacks. It worked because Sonic had a chance to open up and speed away from enemies instead of fighting.

For the first time that I could remember I was excited to run on levels because of minor changes in elevation and pitch. Think about it for a second. Previous to Sonic, most games were very two dimensional, every stage was literally a platform. There were no hills, dips, bumps or grades. Go diagonal while running? Never in a million years!

Sonic broke the mold and the blue hedgehog became less like Mario jumping up and down between platforms and more like an electric pinball whizzing here and there on a roller coaster track. Some said it was a gimmick, others called it disorienting sliding down tunnels and shooting across a level. I thought it was genius and platforming evolved.

Sonic needed momentum to do loops and corkscrews, players sometimes had to get a running start before taking on a series of loops. The sense of running through a level with reckless abandon has yet to be topped.

Just as amazing as the level design was the second player that Sonic had. A little buddy, almost the tag-along little brother in "Tails." His twin tails could propel him forward to follow Sonic through the levels and help him from time to time. Tails could be controlled by a second player and this would come in handy when trying to collect rings during bonus rounds. It would be years before Luigi would join Mario in the middle of a game...

The game still had Sonic trying to defeat Eggman (Dr. Robotnik) but just like the previous title you also had to collect Chaos Emeralds. The original Sonic game had chaos emeralds stuck inside a perpetually rotating room, while disorienting, the level was actually quite cool. This time the emeralds were at the end of a long, pseudo 3D race track. Mixing side scrolling with 3D racing shattered the concepts of what could be done in a console game. Sonic could still run on walls and even flip himself 360 degrees on the track, Naka had broken the third dimension and there was never any going back.

Each level, each zone in the Sonic universe was unique. When I think of a Mario game, even the SNES versions, the levels are usually outdoors, indoors or underwater, again and again. The zones in Sonic looked completely different, at once a grassy hill and next an oil field or a floating airship. Each zone had its own music, tracks written by Dreams Come True, then a budding j-pop group and today considered one of the longest-running, most successful international music acts ever.

Some levels had multiple paths, hidden secrets, blast tunnels and trap doors. Credit where credit is due, learning to play each level became an art. Gamers with experience could not only beat levels quickly, they could also collect Chaos Emeralds and defeat most of the enemies in one fell swoop. Of course no two zones played exactly alike. Some required small steps and timed jumps, others flat out speed. Deconstruct the zones and see how logical this type of level design became. Naka introduced the world to a new way to game, sorry to say but Mario had become antiquated.

At no point did Naka's vision supersede the technical limitations of the 16-bit Sega Genesis. Things that would return in Sonic Adventure games on the Dreamcast and GameCube were pioneered in two dimensions. Sonic spanned the world chasing Eggman and collecting emeralds. When Eggman took flight so too did Sonic, on top of Tail's biplane the "Tornado." Eventually Sonic tracks Eggman to the "EggCarrier" flying fortress and even to a rocket that blasts into outer space toward the "Death Egg" (a clone of the Death Star from Star Wars). The Tornado, EggCarrier and space station all returned in the Adventure games. As did levels based in the desert, caves and high-tech factories.

This type of epic game was told within the span of a few levels on a few-megabyte cartridge and featuring things never before seen on a platformer. Themes of the levels and plot would return time and time again not only in the Sonic games but in other titles from the industry as well. Yuji had raised the bar in Sonic 2, the effects of which remain to this day.

Sonic was never one to fight many bosses, just one, the Eggman. The rivalry spans decades but I think the best battles were in Sonic 2. Eggman would throw some type of mechanical device at Sonic and it was up to the gamer to figure out the timing and weakness and knock Eggman's contraption apart.

From buggies to tanks, drills and helicopters, Eggman threw everything he had at Sonic. In the Death Egg level we were treated to an epic boss battle. Eggman fought from inside a giant mechanical suit, complete with missile launcher and spike fists. The sprite of the robot was gigantic, taking up a third of the screen. For the time it was easily one of the largest sprites and boss characters ever. This "David versus Goliath" battle helped lend tremendous scope to an already epic game.

The characters, good and bad, were designed by Naoto Ohshima and Yasushi Yamaguchi. The designs were a mix between Japanese anime and Western cartoon. Simply timeless. The levels, plot and boss battles were usually an homage to classic Japanese and Western sci-fi. The closer you look into the levels and characters the more you'd see.

In the end it was one design that turned a great sequel into one of my favorite games of all-time... Super Sonic. You could beat the game without ever collecting one Chaos Emerald. Or you could go for broke and collect all of them. The reward for doing so was unlocking a supercharged Sonic. The ending of the game even changed to show off Sonic's new ability. Did I mention that Mario had become antiquated by then?

Upon collecting 50 rings, after gathering all of the Chaos Emeralds, in a level Sonic would turn "super" when he jumped. He was impervious to harm and able to fly through levels faster than ever before. The effects and animation associated with Super Sonic were brilliant. Super Sonic was without a doubt an homage to Dragon Ball Z, which at the time had the main character Son Goku evolve into a "Super Saiyan." This featured many of the same properties and looks that Sonic had inherited. A nod to the genius of Akira Toriyama aka "Dr. Slump," the creator of Dragon Ball Z.

My brothers were there when I first turned into Super Sonic. The reaction was a unanimous "holy shit!"

I never looked back.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 will remain one of my favorite games of all-time for ever and ever.

Sorry Mario.

I hope you get a chance to play it and hopefully become Super Sonic yourselves. Until next week take care and have a great weekend!

I’d like to hear your personal top-10, top-20, top fighting games, top sports games, or top games in any genre. Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Painted faces, where have I seen that sumo before?

If you are a long-time arcade fan then chances are you are familiar with a rare Nintendo game called Arm Wrestling. It was a sort of spiritual successor to Punch-Out!!. The game came out in 1985 and it featured a cavalcade of silly arm wrestlers, including Frankenstein's monster, a burly Texan and pro boxer Bald Bull in a mask. One of the standout rivals was a sumo wrestler named Kabuki. What made this character unique was his face paint. Apparently this character had a flair for the dramatic. I'm not sure if the idea of mixing kabuki theater face paint with a sumo wrestler was solely Nintendo's idea or if the designers had mixed elements from various pop culture sources. I'm leaning towards the latter. The thing was that the seeds were planted for over-the-top characters to be featured in fighting games.



I credit Nintendo with developing a series of international archetypes in the original Punch-Out!! The various boxers from around the world had unique personality traits to go along with their memorable appearances. These caricatures would be emulated by Capcom and various studios when designing the first crop of fighting game all-stars. In 1991 E. Honda would take a page directly from Kabuki. Few remembered the Nintendo character came first and that was okay. Capcom was helping spread fight culture through their characters. The same year that Street Fighter II came out a manga called Aah! Harimanada debuted. The series was by Kei Sadayasu and would eventually be adapted into an anime series and fighting game as well. The series featured the brash Isao Harimanada, a sumo wrestler who was arrogant and insulting to opponents. He was a very dramatic character that would wear masks and headgear to the tournaments, including samurai helmets. The character would boast that that he would beat the 69-consecutive win streak of Sadaji Futabayama or retire trying. The series was kind of boring. It was a definite "Mary Sue" sports hero from Mr. Sadayasu. Isao could be rude and self absorbed and was somehow supposed to be appealing to young readers. As far as fictional sports figures go there was nothing that stood out for the hero. Audiences could guess that he would indeed reach 70 consecutive victories over the series. There was no real chance that he would lose any match. The only thing that changed were which techniques he used in order to beat his opponents. For that matter the rivals were far more interesting than the main character. One of the former champs that gave Isao a run for his money was named Kishin-Nada. The character had a nasty scar on the side of his head.

Kishin lost the match and felt humiliated by Isao, as did many of his opponents. They were all working hard to get a rematch but none took it more personal than Kishin. At the end of Isao's streak a mysterious figure appeared. This sumo was a former champ and he wore a creepy wakaonna, or girl mask from the Noh plays. It was as if Isao would have to wrestle someone with the same flare for the dramatic. When the wrestler removed the mask audiences gasped at his painted face. It was sacrilege that a sumo wrestler would actually wear kabuki face paint into the ring. This figure was trying to create a personae that was every bit as dramatic as Isao. Of course eagle-eyed readers saw that despite the face paint there was a noticeable scar on the side of this new character's face. This fighter called himself Kishin-Ryu, the dragon or ultimate version of Kishin-Nada. I'd like to think that this was Mr. Sadayasu's nod to E. Honda.

There was a Mega Drive (Sega Genesis) version of Aah! Harimanada that came out in 1993. The game by Megasoft was sorely lacking in the control department. Audiences could play through a campaign mode and every battle in the manga was presented in the same order within the game. After a few matches the game felt tedious. It would be a grind to try and beat 70 opponents in a row. What was cool however was how each sumo had their own strength and weaknesses. These things manifested as special attacks and super strikes. Imagine a version of Street Fighter but solely made up of sumo wrestlers. Super thrusts, headbutts, throws and slaps were some of the many techniques players could learn. A dozen characters each had their own super attacks that could be figured out and mastered in a two-player mode. I often wonder how Street Fighter would have been if characters had entirely new move sets applied to them in each sequel. What would have happened to E. Honda if he had new moves added to his library in Turbo, Hyper and Super versions of the game.

I hope you think about this rare series and the flamboyant sumo wrestler that appeared in other games the next time you play Street Fighter. Truth of course was much more interesting than fiction. Isao Harimanada was nowhere near as interesting as the real Futabayama. The record-setting sumo wrestler was blind in one eye but he never revealed this to anyone until after he retired. His opponents could have of course used this information against him. He was certainly much more humble about his abilities than Isao. Maybe a fighting game might base a character after a real legend. Stranger things have happened! As always if you enjoyed this blog and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!