30 Days of Sonic DAY 29 - Question of the Week 4: 'Fondest Memories' [30DOS22]

[Dreadknux]

The penultimate day of 30 Days of Sonic! Our final Question of the Week!

   

By taking part in this, and all other Question of the Week activities, you can earn a GOLD Badge like the one above.

Question of the Week

Fondest Sonic Memories

As we come to the close of 30 Days of Sonic, our final conversation starter involves our fondest memories of the blue blur. Maybe these are childhood memories, growing up playing Sonic on your first video game console. Perhaps it's an event, like going to see the Sonic Movie after decades of being a die-hard Sonic fan. Or it could even be community-focused, like meeting online friends for the first time in real life at Summer of Sonic or Sonic Revolution convention.

What's your fondest Sonic memories? Have at it!

[NikoS]

Oh, I recall quite well, the times that will never come back, gladly in some way, since it helped us be who we are,

Little Nikos was like, 5 years old, his first video game (he didn't knew what a video game was) was the MegaDrive III, it came with 10 games in it's memory, he liked to play Flicky, Streets of Rage, but mostly he enjoyed Sonic the Hedgehog (he was realy bad at all these games).

He was playing it whenever he could, Sonic was his favorite game, although he could hardly beat Marble Zone act 3 at the time, he was always trying and loving every minute of it, while his mother was helping him, or cooking in the kitchen, and his father was listening to his vinyl collection.

Good times.

I love my family.

[castell-neath]

Ooohh...i may have to break that down in to 3 parts.

1-fondest memory of gaming is probably playing s3&k which I had for my 12th b.day and playing mushroom hill in early autumn (fall)...it just felt so "right" to play that level at that time and also complete the sonic 3 saga,which at the time was a huuuuuge game!

2 - fondest memory of community events is a tie between meeting mike pocock at SoS 2016 or attending my first Weston Super Sonic in 2015 as part of a date with my wife to be...who also loved it. (confirming she was a keeper! Lol!!). Both events were so, so good and very enjoyable and the cosplayers really made it too!

3-Fondest "general" sonic memory is defo the hype around generations, the superb merch available at the time and the game actually being great...if a bit short. There was a buzz around the franchise not seen since the 90s and I was actually old enough (and a bit richer!!) to enjoy all aspects of it.

[Indigo Rush]

Receiving a copy of Sonic 2 as a birthday gift from my grandfather and then playing it with my little sister playing as Tails. It was the purest moment of joy with the hedgehog I think I've ever felt, because it's connected with my family. 

[Rabid-Coot]

Making a lifelong friend from a conversation about that barrel.

[Iko]

I have many fond memories.

The first one was mentioned in the first day of the month, that time when I was very young and played Sonic 1 SMS: I finally reached Scrap Brain for the first time, then did a game over and lost all progresses... and I cried in desperation. Despite this, the next time I tried again and succeded in completing the game. At first I lost all my hopes, but then I realized that with some experience I could easily reach that place again and go even futher... that moment really made me grow up a bit.

When I was a teen and played Sonic Adventure 2 on Gamecube, it was a great experience. Getting all those A ranks was frustrating, but the satisfaction of getting them was priceless. I fell in love for the Chao Gardens, and it was the time when I was also playing the Advance games for the first time, exchanging chaos with the console game. I remember that I used to get up early before going to school, and played like 30 mins of Sonic every day. Exploring the levels of Sonic Advance 2 for the special stages... many people consider them bad, but I had a very good time with that as well... learning the level layout and finally finding the correct route to access the special stage, it really felt rewarding. Those were the most fun years of being a Sonic fan for me.

Around the same time as when I played the Adventure games, I also played the classics, and I remember making up theories about how the zones are placed on the islands, drawing the map and the path made by Sonic, and all.

I kinda have a fond memory of reading the Metal Virus arc of IDW too... finally caring about the characters again after so much time... and the fanservice, I wanted to see Gemerl again since many years and they finally granted my wish... the Advance games being referenced and considered canon.

Who knows, maybe this year's 30 days of Sonic will become a fond memory of mine in the future...

 

[WanderingBleats]

My fondest memories are all regarding the fandom itself. The games are great (well, some of them) and the cartoons and comics and movies and whatnot are fun. They're certainly burned into my mind. I would continue to play the games from time to time without any community aspect, sure. But the reason Sonic is really meaningful to me is because of the people I met through it, the friendships we forged, and what we created together.

More specifically, I'm thinking back to the period from about late-2002 to 2003, and a few years beyond that. I spent a good chunk of my adolescence and teenage years on the fansite The Eggman Empire, where I met many close friends, including @Dr. Mechano. All of my fondest Sonic-related memories grew out from that. There are too many to count. Writing fanfiction and eagerly awaiting the next chapters submitted by the site regulars. Making my first online friends, even my first romantic relationship. Collaborating on fangame projects. Building an entire expanded universe of Sonic content, our own continuity that didn't quite match the games. Endless roleplaying, getting into dumb fights, making plans that outpaced our skill to actually execute them, forum posts, AIM chats, theorizing, speculating, growing increasingly disillusioned with the series together...

...It's all about the people. Joining that website was the best decision I ever made regarding this series. Nothing Sega or any creative team could do even comes close.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

For me, probably getting Mega Collection Plus. Despite Heroes being my first Sonic game ever, Mega Collection Plus, as far as I can recall was the first Sonic game I actually owned. I'd played Heroes on my friend's PS2 for ages as a kid, so when Mega Collection Plus released in 2004, and I saw it around various shops for £20 for 20 games, I really really wanted it as a kid.

I remember hunting around shops such as ASDA to try to get it, and we couldn't find it, and it eventually ended up that we had to go into a city that was a bit away from us and head to our nearest Smyths to finally get it, but boy was I excited when we went inside and we tracked it down. I remember reading the manual a ton as a kid, and I would play all of the games in it a ton, even if I never got particularly far in them (I didn't understand save states back then lol). I also didn't have much taste back then because Labyrinth, and Blast was probably among my favourites - the former because it was the only one I could get decently far in, and the latter because it had playable Knuckles lol.

Adding to this, Rush was one of the first games I got on my DS after I bought one for myself with money I'd gotten from a recent celebration. I'd picked up a few games like Mario & Donkey Kong 2 (I really wanted it because I saw the first GBA one in a Argos catalogue like a year ago and wanted that one, unaware it was completely different compared to other Mario games), and Madagascar. That Christmas, I got a good amount of DS games as presents, but chief among them and probably my favourite was Sonic Rush. I remember multiple car rides of playing Rush, sweeping through Leaf Storm, Water Palace, and so on. I'm pretty sure it's the first Sonic game I got really far in on my own, making it to around Zone 6 or 7 a good through times. I'm actually pretty certain it's the first Sonic game I actively made myself go towards 100%ing, finding video guides and the like to help me get into the special stages, and I did manage to pull it off. It was a good time all around.

My other fondest memory is of Jetix UK, which aired Sonic X over here. It was one of my most watched shows, and I would try to catch it on Jetix whenever I could. In particular, there was always a late night block where during the early filler hours, Jetix had Yin Yang Yo, Sonic X, and Pucca running one after another, so even though Sonic X was the one I was mainly staying for, I ended up watching all three shows, and coming back to them fairly regularly. I think I've said it before, but I can still to this day distinctly remember sitting down to watch this block of shows, and for some reason, the shot of Sonic and co outside of Eggman's pyramid in SA2, about to infiltrate it to get to the ARK has still stayed with me since. I also remember watching the scene where Chris' teacher is told about what happened to the ARK and Gerald Robotnik, although I don't remember if it was the same episode or not lol. 

[Solister]

It's really hard to select one, or at least, one which should stand out the others, so here's a compilation of a few of my favorite moments:

Probably my first memory with the blue blur is me and my brother playing Sonic 2 on the SEGA Genesis Collection on the PS2. I think not long after we finished the game, him as Sonic, me as Tails. Still to this day, listening to Chemical Plant or the Special Stage music brings direct memories to that day.

My second memory is probably my fondest of all (well, actually a collection of memories in a span of 2 years), if not, the happiest period of my life. I was about or just turned 10, my parents just got me a very crappy notebook which barely ran Windows 98 (note, this was 2012), and my brother installed tons of games for me to play on it, including Kega Fusion and pretty much every Sonic game imaginable for the Genesis/32x/Master System as well as lots of ROM Hacks. Also on this period I remember going to watch Wreck-it-Ralph being hyped as fuck just because I knew Sonic made a 5-minute cameo in the movie, as well remember playing some PS2 games such as Unleashed, Gems Collection (Especially R) and SEGA Superstars Tennis. After playing the hell out of these games, I remember being excited to play Sonic Adventure, although no way that poor notebook would handle it, so playing DX for the first time on an upgraded PC it was like magic.

A third moment is my contact with the Sonic social medias, despite with some bad decisions, arguments and just unwanted discussions sometimes, really helped me grow as a person alongside the Blue Blur. Highlights here come with getting hyped for Sonic Mania as well the 2 (or 3) Sonic Music Spectaculars I've participated. Also, around this time I've a very special memory of Sonic's I think 25th or 26th birthday, can't recall, where I had an entire day dedicated to Sonic, I just started vacations, and played and consumed all types of Sonic media until I went to sleep.

Unfortunately, I couldn't dedicate as much as I should to the blue blur as I should, but definitely getting hyped to see both Sonic movies on theaters and just the feeling "wow, that was good" afterwards is enough to feel happy.

[Strickerx5]

Oh, it's hard to choose... erm. I guess something that really sticks out to me as just being a good time to be a Sonic fan is not really a moment for me per say but a general period of time; and that'd have to be the summer before Generations was released. The amount of hype that was surging for the game is something we simply don't see too often and I was completely there for it. The news drops, demo leaks, looking at any bit of live-gameplay I could find, the memes... it was a grand time.

Also, it was the first game press cycle I was fully on here for from start to finish as well.

[Adamabba]

My fondest memories are enjoying the Sonic content that came out during the early 2000s when I first got into the series, which I already talked about in the topic about getting into the franchise at the beginning of the month. 

 I'll just point out that I specifically miss enjoying the franchise while being oblivious to all the negativity that surrounds it, and barely even acknowledging whatever flaws that the series has had.

[Shiny Gems]

I have had many, but one of them is when I played Sonic Adventure 2 and made it to the final boss, the Final Hazard. It was there I heard Live and Learn for the first time in terms of its vocals, and I loved it. I also remember playing the same game and playing City Escape and watching the cutscene before. Listening to Sonic's voice for the first time, and playing Sonic in 3D for the first time was a blast! I was in my early teens when this happened. I also remember playing and beating Sonic 2 for the first time, having collected the Chaos Emeralds before then, and how good it felt to have done so and see Super Sonic in the ending cutscene.

I would go with hearing the vocals of Live and Learn as my most fondest memory, though.

[A super No.1 washedupgamer]

It's a weird one but I have a fond memory of finally reaching sky sanctuary zone in sonic3k pc. Sonic and knuckles was too hard for me back in the day so I used the level select code to get to the end of the game. Then I realized that I wanted to see the rest of the game so I played and played and played until I got good at it. When I finally reached sky sanctuary zone in a playthrough, I was amazed at how bright and colorful it looked. I thought the moment the death egg rises in the background was so epic, and knuckles helping you to catch up. Knuckles was a prick throughout the whole game but I remember that I hated to see him hurt from his injuries in hidden palace zone.

I wasn't used to the egg robos being the only types of badniks in the stage but it was cool. I was surprised by the twist that mecha sonic shows up to fight you instead of robotnik. I lost many lives until I finally beat him and then that epic cutscene played where sonic runs up the tower to the giant looming death egg above while the entire stage just collapses. I don't know why but sky sanctuary left an impression on me back in the day that's hard to describe. Years later, I'm overjoyed to see it as a remixed level in sonic generations.

Another fond memory is me and my little brother having to play sonic heroes without a memory card on ps2. We'd always lose at either frog forest or egg fleet. before we had to start over. It truly felt like a classic experience. We finally bought a memory card like a month later so we could 100% it. Good times.

[Sapphirine Wind]

I've talked about it before, but my fondest memory is when I discovered the Chao Garden in Sonic Adventure DX. Since I never saw it in the demo, it was a huge surprise, so the cheery music, cute Chao and Animals was like Christmas 2. I discovered it at the tail end of my first time playing the game, so I remember going to bed and counting the minutes till I could play again.

I can't think of anything since that comes that far. But that was when I was really, really little, so I think it left a huge impression on me because of my age, on top of all the things I liked about it.

[Winston]

My fondest memory of Sonic is likely playing Colors for the first time with my little brother. Colors isn't my favorite game in the series, and I know people look back on it pretty badly now, but it was really the first time I ever played a game with my little brother and we took turns playing the levels. He's about a decade younger than me, so I was like 13 and he was 3, but still, those are some fun memories. Not really a memory I guess, but just an appreciation, but I also liked meeting a lot of people online, as without places like this forum or other places online dedicated to Sonic, I wouldn't have met some of my best friends. There were rough patches, but I'm glad I joined this community to at least make some friends that I still talk to and play games with to this day. 

[Dr. Mechano]

I've gotta echo @WanderingBleatshere.

My fondest memories with the Sonic fandom were running the Eggman Empire with him, along with our other friends. The community we had at the EE was really something special, and some of us are still pretty close to this day.

More than any game, any piece of fanwork, or anything else - the people I've met through our shared fandom have made my absolute fondest memories.

[Nix]

I dunno, but seeing the Sonic the Hedgehog movies with my brothers in a packed theater with both new and old fans was a cool experience. 

Spoiler

Me and a bunch of other random dudes were just dropping a bunch of Shadow the Hedgehog quotes while we were walking out of the second movie like a reddit shitpost lmao.

 

[Eurisko]

Fondest memories………

Finishing Sonic 1 with all 6 emeralds for the first time. 
 

Sonic 2 tournaments with all of the kids in my street as a kid when the game had just come out. Literally 15 kids at my childhood best friends house , Sonic 2 split screen , winner stays on. Priceless.

Completing Generations with my son.

Getting my mates who dont play Sonic hooked on All-Stars Transformed. We race online to this day. 

 

Seeing the Sonic movie on opening night. 

 

[JezMM]

A few that spring to mind:

The aforementioned first time I re-ignited my love for Sonic when a friend brought Sonic Adventure 2 around my house.  Before I saw the life-changing City Escape, I remember them getting frustrated that they wanted to play as Shadow but the Dark Story drops you in as Eggman.  We both had a laugh humming The Blue Danube Waltz (i.e. "that one funny classical music" at the time) as Shadow skated around elegantly during the first boss.

Numerous great memories meeting online friends for the first, second and so on times at Summer of Sonic (or generally - all the ones I've met stemmed from Sonic fandom at least initially!).

Playing Sonic Advance 2 for the first time during a week off school.  I had gone to the shops with my Dad and had no idea it was even a game that existed until I saw it.  The purest Sonic experience I've ever had in a sense since I knew nothing of it from beforehand.  I was so excited to get it home and see what the deal was with this new bunny character on the box and played it the whole week.

The first time I played the finale of Sonic Unleashed.  While definitely flawed, I was blown away by all the setpieces and sense of danger and excitement, as well as the intensity that the marathon-length level provided.

 

[Eggman Fan]

You know I've never been that good at 2D Sonic, couldn't ever get the hang of the momentum, so I never managed to finish the first game. I managed to beat every other game I've tried, never once failed before trying that one out, but it managed to get the better of me try after try. I stop playing it for a while, a couple years I think, so when I booted it up I was expecting the same outcome. I didn't think much of it for a while, was just playing the game, til I saw something that nearly made me choke myself on my water.

Final Zone. Didn't take long to claim victory after that. I can't quite figure out what made the difference. I don't even think I played the other genesis games. But to finally beat that game after so long, nothing ever made me feel quite as proud. It's either that or Black Knight.

[Covskin]

I've got a couple of fond memories, and they're somewhat protracted.

The first was a period spanning 2003 - 2004. I'd just got a Gamecube and my brother informed me a compilation called Sonic Mega Collection was being released. We snapped that up pretty quick and having not played Sonic since the release of Sonic 3D, I dove headfirst back into fandom. I rented Sonic Adventure DX and 2 Battle and as I looked online, came across the first couple of Japanese Sonic X episodes. Further digging led me to here amid the build for Sonic Heroes, and after completing the game I made an account here. It was an exciting time for me, though that did diminish with Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 06.

 

The rest are tired to Summer of Sonic. Aside from Mario & Sonic at the Olympics, I went over 5 years without buying a Sonic game so I was participating in much less Sonic discussion. Still, I attended SoS 2009 because of the community and the positive reception of the first event. I had a great time but unfortunately missed the 2010 edition. By this time I was back in the fold though - Colours and Rush Adventure, then the hype for Generations swept me up. SoS 2011 was incredible and I loved the game. Even Sonic 4 was satisfactory to me at the time! SoS 2012 I happened across the random guy I spent most of SoS 2011 with and hadn't spoken to since, and we spontaneously re-enacted our stupid dance we did in 2011. He was a cool dude. Hung out with him in 2013 and 2016's events too, but every event was a great time. Again, I hadn't actually bought any new Sonic games since Sonic 4 Episode 2 (and didn't until Mania Plus!) but the SoS events never failed to put a smile on my face.

[Tornado]

This is going to sound pretty shmaltzy but joining SSMB in 2003 in the midst of the huge amount of media attention Heroes was getting and Sonic X weeks away from debuting and Sonic Advance 3 being shown off and playing SRB2/Time Attacked for the first time and finding how cool fan games could be and learning about the Sonic 2 Beta and all of the development history of the series at large to that point in general and all of the different fan sites there were was pretty overwhelming for me at the time.

[Cosmos Rogue]

I don't have a real story here, but playing (the demo of) Sonic Generations for the first time filled me with a joy that no other video game ever has.

[Celestia]

No super specific stories here but I have a lot of fond memories of the early 2000s Sonic fandom. I had a Gamecube and was able to play a vast majority of the Sonic franchise up to that point, so naturally I quickly found my way onto all the fan sites. Who remembers sites like Sonic Wrecks and theghz? There's probably a bunch of others I don't even remember going to, and/or aren't even archived.

I'm pretty sure I found most Sonic fans via affiliate links with TSS, or with each other, but if I go on about that I'll just be rambling like an old person about how different the internet was back then. WE WALKED THREE MILES TO AND FROM SSMB, UPHILL BOTH WAYS.

Also something I do distinctly remember is people coming up with really elaborate ideas for games. I did the same thing though I only shared one or two I think and unfortunately they've all been lost to time. My Shadow the Hedgehog 2 would have been super awesome, by the way.

 

Some of my fondest memories with the games are still the final bosses in those early 3D games, and Doomsday in 3K actually. Definitely a formative moment because I'm always happy to see games still do that kind of over the top finale (thank you Kirby for consistently keeping this tradition alive).

A more recent one is...weirdly, booting up Colours for the first time. I mean I enjoy the game but more specifically, throwing you right into gameplay was kinda neat to see in an otherwise modern 2010 video game. Oh, and seeing levels from the original games and early 3D games in HD in Generations was really cool. The recentish moment that stands out the most though is Mania's announcement. Seeing names I recognized from the fandom working on an official new game was unbelievable, even knowing they had worked on the mobile versions a few years earlier.

[Sega DogTagz]

Oh this is an easy one.

I was a big time gamer in my high school years. Logged hours like it was my day job. All different kinds of games too. So when I rolled into college, I quickly gained a reputation for being unbeatable. Didn't really matter what we were playing. Madden. Mario Kart. I always won. Something stupid like a 95% win rate night in night out. I remember when Mario and Sonic came out, people kept challenging me to 100m Dash waggle fests, and it took about an hour of back to backs before someone with a fresh set of arms was able to knock me off.

So, one weekend the college hosted a campus wide Smash tourney in the movie theater. There was a bunch of cash prizes, and on my way there I decided I was going to go for the "Best K/D ratio" prize (it was like $100) so I had my mind set on main-ing Wolf cause he's a noob slayer. When I got to the sign in table, they wanted the name, entry fee and your primary main. Right before I jotted down wolf, some dudes in the next line over were discussing their mains and one of them said Sonic; to which no less than 5 other guys chimed in with  "He's some trash" or "Your gonna get smoked".

 

So of course. I had to main my man Blue.

I ran back to my dorm to throw on all the Sonic clothes I could find and barely made it back to the start of the tournament. My first match was actually against one of the 5 dudes who poked the lion in the first place, and I quickly 3 stocked him in spectacular fashion. I was so salty that I spammed Sonic's taunt at every opportunity, which got a lot of peoples attn.

I quite literally ran through the brackets. Rarely lost a stock and continued to beat the taunt button like it had kicked my puppy. My matches started to attract crowds too. By the third one, people were gathering in the seats to shout "Your Too Slow" every time I taunted. By the semi-Finals, it was standing room only, and all anyone wanted to see was Sonic spamming his catchprase.

We actually had to hold off the finals because I was also advancing in the free-for-all bracket. I couldn't get nearly as many taunts off, but I was doing work and once it became clear that I was looking like a lock to make the finals in the 1 v 1 and the free-for-all all the other players ganged up on me. I actually won two more rounds of more or less 3 v 1 before getting axed in the semis.

 

But then it was back to the real meat. The 1 v 1 finals. Other guy ran a MetaKnight, which was problematic, but nothing I couldn't handle. And with the crowd on my side, all the pressure was on him. It got so raucous that we actually got a noise complaint from the cops at 2 A.M. From inside a movie theater. It was Crazy.

 

When I landed a Clean sidesmash to take the last Stock a "Your too Slow" chant broke out as I went to collect my prize. When they asked me to say a few words, I told the crowd that Nintendo needs to think about Nerfing Sonic cause he's busted and left.

 

I actually ended up winning the K/D prize. The 1 v 1 Prize and the fan favorite award. Walked away with like $350. Whenever people saw me for the next month, they would point and say Your too Slow!

 

Ah. Yeah. That was great.