Appreciation Section: Sonic the Hedgehog

I woke up this morning feeling excited. Christmas morning excited. I'm sorry to break it to you if you're younger, but when you're 29 years old, that kind of excitement doesn't happen very often (even on Christmas morning, sadly). But today does feel special. It was 20 years ago today that the original Sonic the Hedgehog was released. So it seems fitting that we should celebrate that iconic game with the first of our new regular Appreciation Section features, which listeners of theTalkRadar UK Podcastmight recognise.

You may have read my feature about theincredible secrets left on the cutting room floorof Sonic the Hedgehog 1. But that's the unofficial, bootleggy world of Sonic ROMs and exactly the opposite of what Yuji Naka and his team would want me to be talking about today. So this article is a celebration of the 'proper' version of Sonic 1 as it appeared in 1991.

Justin Towell

Justin was a GamesRadar staffer for 10 years but is now a freelancer, musician and videographer. He's big on retro, Sega and racing games (especially retro Sega racing games) and currently also writes for Play Magazine, Traxion.gg, PC Gamer and TopTenReviews, as well as running his own YouTube channel. Having learned to love all platforms equally after Sega left the hardware industry (sniff), his favourite games include Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams, Zelda BotW, Sea of Thieves, Sega Rally Championship and Treasure Island Dizzy.