Sonic the Hedgehog (universe): Difference between revisions

|publisher        = Sega<br>THQ<br>Atari SA<br>[[Nintendo]]<br>Gameloft

|latestinstallment = ''{{iw|wikipedia|Sonic Frontiers}}'' (2022)

By 1988, [[Sega]] had released its 16-bit successor to the Sega Master System, the Mega Drive, worldwide. It was renamed as the {{s|wikipedia|Sega Genesis}} for its North American release due to Sega's inability to secure legal rights to the Mega Drive name in the region. Nintendo's flagship {{uv|Mario}} franchise was at the height of its worldwide commercial success, with the recent release of ''Super Mario Bros. 3'' in Japan, a week before the Mega Drive's launch, and both the North American releases of Nintendo's own 16-bit system, the Super Famicom, renamed as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and one of its launch titles, ''Super Mario World'', would be released in mid-1991. Sega made a conscious effort to directly compete against Nintendo's powerful brand with a reliance on a new mascot for both the console and the company itself, one that would help sell systems and broaden its market demographic, and thus began development of its own platformer in April 1990 (two months after the North American release of ''Super Mario Bros. 3''). The game placed an emphasis on horizontally-lengthy levels that could be navigated with a player-character that could run and roll through at a high velocity, with movements that were dictated by elements of momentum-based physics. The original concept for an emphasis on speed was that most video games in the 1980s did not have save files, and thus players would often memorize level patterns and attempt to speed through them as fast as possible to make any real progress. The screen scrolled as fast as it needed to keep up; it was a very technically difficult process to create the game's graphics engine so that it could allow this speed without sacrificing graphical clarity. The end result was the worldwide debut of the eponymous character [[Sonic the Hedgehog]], whose game was released in June 23, 1991 in North America, 2 months ahead of the SNES's launch in the region.

===[[List of rumors#Unlocking Sonic and Tails|Sonic & Tails Rumor]]===

Players have proven this rumor false both in premise and in practice. It would be highly unlikely that Sega (which, during ''Melee''{{'}}s development, was not yet a full-fledged third-party company, and thus was in competition with Nintendo) would sell its characters for use in a Nintendo game. There are no provisions to include Sonic and Tails in ''Melee''{{'}}s [[All-Star Mode]] (which showcases every playable character in the game), and an [[Notice|in-game message]] also indicates that {{SSBM|Mr. Game & Watch}} is the last unlockable character (or whoever the player unlocks last). In addition, another message tells the player that they have unlocked every trophy. As beating single-player modes with Sonic and Tails would yield new trophies, this is impossible. Along with all of this, analyzing the game data reveals absolutely nothing of Sonic or Tails existing in the game.

The ''Sonic'' franchise makes a sensational debut in the ''Smash Bros.'' series in ''[[Super Smash Bros. Brawl]]''.

*[[File:SonicIcon(SSBB).png|50px|right|link=Sonic (SSBB)]]'''{{SSBB|Sonic}}''' ([[Unlockable character|Unlockable]]): The eponymous star of the franchise was the most anticipated and requested third-party character for ''Brawl''. His appearance is based off of the "modern" Sonic appearance in the later ''Sonic'' games, such as ''Sonic Adventure'', ''Sonic Adventure 2'', ''Sonic Heroes'', ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' (2006) and ''Sonic Unleashed''. Seemingly as expected, he is a character who emphasizes speed, and has been compared to {{SSBM|Fox}} and {{SSBM|Falco}} in ''Melee''. His [[Final Smash]] is [[Super Sonic]], during which he utilizes the seven Chaos Emeralds to transform him and fly around the stage, ramming into opponents at high speeds.{{clr}}

*'''[[Victory theme#Sonic Victory Theme|Victory! Sonic]]''': Sonic's victory theme is an orchestration of the one from various ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' titles, with it originating in ''Sonic the Hedgehog 3''. This version, entitled Mission Clear, is taken directly from ''Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)'', more commonly known as ''Sonic 06'', for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, making it the only victory theme to be directly imported from another game.

The ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' universe has media represented throughout the ''Super Smash Bros.'' series with a total of 46 games and medias. The latest game represented in this universe is ''{{s|wikipedia|Sonic Forces}}'', released on November 7, 2017.

**This is a similar case to how ''SSB4'' and ''Ultimate'' refer to the {{uv|Final Fantasy}} universe completely in capital letters as well, in both the trophies gallery and in the stage builder music selection.

**Along with the {{uv|Pac-Man}} universe, ''Sonic'' and  ''Final Fantasy'' are the only three third-party universes to have more than one stage.