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.