After making Sonic fans wait for it, Sega finally announced a slew of games and appearances to ring in (geddit?) the blue blur's 30th birthday. A Sonic Colors remake, cameos in Minecraft, Tokyo Olympics, and Lost Judgment, and even an all-new Sonic game – a game that might lay the foundation for a whole new era of Sonic titles, no less. However, the best news of all was Sonic Origins, which sees the original games first released on Sega Genesis becoming available for a whole new generation of players.
Giving Sonic fans old and new a chance to play the very first Sonic game, as well as the ones which immediately followed, makes a lot of sense. However, this isn't the first time the original Sonic games have been repackaged and re-released. Sonic's original 2D sidescrollers, especially Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, have been made available on just about every platform this century.
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Sega first decided it wanted to start introducing new fans to the first Sonic games via the release of the Sonic Mega Collection on GameCube almost 20 years ago. Its success resulted in the collection of more than ten classic Sonic games launching on Xbox and PS2. The new collection was dubbed the Sonic Mega Collection Plus since it had a few added extras not included on the GameCube version.
Clearly, the collection worked like a charm and Sega realised that Sonic fans were hungry for more games from the series' past. The Sonic Gems Collection came next, adding more obscure games into the mix including Sonic CD. Speaking of which, Sonic CD will be making a reappearance via Sonic Origins when the newest generation of consoles gets its very own Sonic Collection.
As the PS2 and the original Xbox were replaced by the PS3 and Xbox 360, Sega deemed it necessary to introduce even more people to Sonic. Enter Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection, a gathering of games that is exactly what it says on the tin, or in this case the box art. However, in this instance, Sonic came packaged with a lot of the games he shared a console with during the early '90s. Non-Sonic games such as Ristar and Streets of Rage set this apart from the collection that had come before.
Since classic Sonic games can now be bought through online stores on various consoles, including an updated version of Sonic 2 on Switch, some may have thought the series' collection era might be over, but apparently not. Sonic Origins will bundle the games together yet again, and people will buy it without complaint. If any other series were to have shamelessly sold the same games over and over again with barely any tweaks, there would be uproar. Sonic though, he gets a pass, thus proving those original four games are the most replayable games of all time.
They are the ultimate comfort games for whoever played them the first time around. Whether you were five, 15, or 50 when you first played them 30 years ago, there's something that forever stays familiar when you revisit Emerald Hill, Mystic Cave, or Hydrocity. Some of us have played the games so many times and on so many different platforms that we could do it in our sleep. Honestly, if the music from the first game's bonus levels starts playing, odds are I am going to fall asleep, and I mean that as a compliment.
On the flip side, Sonic fans' love for those first four games might well be an indictment on what has come since. While there has been the odd Sonic game that has gone down in history as being objectively good, most have been played and forgotten relatively quickly so we can all go back to playing whatever of the aforementioned collections we have to hand. The closest Sega has come to recreating that magic is Sonic Mania, for obvious reasons, hence the disappointment it won't be getting a sequel anytime soon.
The easiest and perhaps best comparison to make is with Sonic's eternal rival, Mario. Yes, the original Mario games are classics and also incredibly replayable. However, they aren't the best Mario games, nor are they repeatedly repackaged and resold. Nintendo is busy making newer and better Mario games. Sunshine, Galaxy, Odyssey. If you want to play the OGs then they're waiting for you via an NSO subscription.
When Sonic Origins launches next year, I'll be picking up a copy on day one. My PS5 will be the seventh different platform I have played a Sonic game on that was originally released on the Genesis. From the original console, to the PS2, 360, PS4, Switch, and even on mobile. Some of the games will still be available to me on some of those platforms when I fork over even more money to play the same games again, yet I won't regret doing so for even a second.
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