Sonic is defined by speed. As a way to prove the Sega Genesis’ power relative to Nintendo and Mario, Sonic had to be fast personified. In an era where entertainment and value were defined by bits, Sega set out to make Sonic’s default speed the same as Mario’s running speed. Where does this put the player, who inherits this speed? (And also inherits this console war?)
Sonic sometimes goes too fast to comprehend. He runs into an enemy you couldn’t have seen, because you were going too fast, or falls off a cliff that wasn’t on the horizon a second ago. (The fast stages are often designed so you can fall to a lower platform, the slower stages…are just not fun.) Sonic the Hedgehog introduces the concept of too fast in a genre that doesn’t usually encourage “too” anything. When the expectation is pinpoint accuracy, there is a thrill to losing control.
Platformers, and most games, are all about control. It’s how the the player interacts with the form, the precision to jump from one platform to another or dodge enemies and evade obstacles. What does it mean to tease beyond that, to provide a glimpse of what can’t be controlled or can be barely controlled. How should the player feel when this relationship shifts?
There’s also the meta-gaming way to assert control. As with many platformers of the time, the levels were often designed to be replayed over and over again, allowing failure and repetition to guide the players to learn patterns and memorize level designs. Here, it gives players a level of control even if Sonic is too fast, extending beyond the bounds of the virtual world to see future moves.
Granted, this is all more a feeling than a mechanic reality. Sonic isn’t sloppy to control, and with some practice, it’s not too hard to understand the momentum at play and utilize it with accuracy. Nor are most of the levels really that fast, and some are sluggish to the detriment of the game. But Sonic in the hands of the player always feels fast, he always feels like speed. There is this thrill to Sonic when he’s shooting through Green Hill Zone or bouncing around like a pinball, where your controls might be slipping just a bit from the speed. So fast it raises the question of how in control do we want to be?