I have, I'll readily admit, always been more of a SEGA girl than a Nintendo girl. For some reason, mascots like Sonic the Hedgehog and NiGHTS just held more appeal to me. I like their sharp angles, their slight alien fierceness, the odd, unfriendly quality to them. It appeals more than Mario's marshmallow design and cheery personality. I don't know why.

(And yeah, I know Sonic Team was responsible for both these games, so maybe I should just say them.)

I mean, Sonic the Hedgehog wasn't really a hero. Especially in the early games where he never spoke, I thought it was pretty clear that Eggman (Robotnik, as he was then called over here in North America) antagonized Sonic directly, and that Sonic was less concerned with saving the world from an evil madman than kicking the ass of the guy who'd pissed him off.

And I guess that was the intent, because the more recent fleshing-out of Sonic's personality, in Japanese media and the "Adventure" games, has definitely gone that route. Sonic is portrayed more than once as being sort of reluctant to go out of his way to save the world; "Freedom Fighters" Archie Comics canon aside, Sonic is usually portrayed as keeping his distance from society, avoiding the cities that clearly exist in his world to live out in the wild -- but usually on a nice beach somewhere -- with his buddy, Tails. Ever since the third game, we've also been getting the sense of Sonic trying to relax, recover from his last successful attempt to avert the apocalypse, and being forced out of contented retirement yet again by Eggman's return.

Other things that have served as a motivating factor for Sonic include rescuing very specific friends (Tails, in "Sonic Spinball"; Amy Rose in "Sonic CD"), and beating up guys who are jerks to him (Knuckles, "Sonic the Hedgehog 3"/"Sonic & Knuckles"; Knack the Weasel, "Triple Trouble"). I would also expect Sonic to be pretty motivated by having something important stolen from him -- say, those magic socks and sneakers that can withstand the friction of light speed.

Basically, Sonic looks out for number one. I buy his slightly more heroic turn in the "Adventure" games, because I figure you get used to saving the world after a while, and because he met Knuckles, a guy so hot-headed and self-centered that he made Sonic look sensible and altruistic. Meeting a jerk who acts way too much like you has got to be some kind of a wake-up call.

/>Speaking of which, by the way, when did the Japanese decide Sonic and Knuckles were BFF? I mean, Knuckles's original tagline was "Sonic's friendly nemesis," which I imagine was "rival" (raibaru) in the Japanese, and "rivals" have always been kind of a grey area in Japanese media; in a nutshell, your "rival" is that guy you kind of enjoy hating, who'll make fun of you and try to outdo you whenever possible, but might still show up to give you a hand if you're in serious trouble. And me, I thought the Sonic-and-Knuckles relationship was a little more straightforward than that.

The guy hates you, because he decided Eggman looked more trustworthy, so when Eggman said you were after his Lucky Charms Chaos Emeralds, Knuckles believed him and started a campaign to make your life hell. He can be counted on to show up once a level or so and screw you over -- often sending you to meet a boss, or something else equally awesome. It was pretty much guaranteed to make the player hate him, and I know it sure as heck worked on me.

(Until we got to play as Knuckles, and then the part where he could glide and climb walls kind of made up for his being a tool.)

Although I guess the graphic at the end of Sonic & Knuckles kind of shows that Knuckles is, after two whole games, finally kind of grateful for your help...?

But either way, his appearances since then, where he's done things like catch and carry Sonic or steady him when he's weak and wobbly, have been markedly different.

And weird.

And slashy?

Anyway. I liked the gameplay. I remember first comparing it to Mario, and just kind of deciding I liked Sonic better. I prefer levels actually designed to be run through as fast as possible, with wild loops and secret places you can spring to, where the platform elements are way more limited. (And it's not like I hate platform games, I loved the whole "Donkey Kong Country" series, and I like Yoshi's Story and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, so I keep thinking I should go back and give Mario another shot.) Something about the wild, almost-out-of-control levels appeal to me. WHOO ADRENALINE.

And I thought the games translated really beautifully to 3D. "Sonic Adventure" was awesome. Not nearly enough RPG in there to merit the name, but awesome nonetheless.

(--Boy, I don't know what I'd think of a proper Sonic the Hedgehog RPG. It kind of seems like the staples of the series are totally opposed to each other. But I could have done with a little more RPG in my Adventure -- we already had a few powerups to give the illusion of leveling, so why not add a few more? How about some side quests? We have a decent-sized world here, populated by people -- you could give those people quests, where maybe they'd want you to go and beat a new boss, or get a certain time on a level you've already been through, and then throw in some fetch-and-carry quests... You don't have to do a LOT of this, I think some totally huge RPGs have twenty side quests, but the typical number is way lower, and it would've added more things to DO...)

"Sonic Adventure 2" was a little less awesome, though, and I've liked pretty much every subsequent game a little less. There's just -- not enough SONIC. Big the Cat's levels (essentially a fishing simulator) were kind of annoying, but they did plenty to "mix it up".

We are playing a game that has had, to date, three modes of successful play:

1. Side-scrolling race, bopping enemies and looping loops, collecting rings, to get to the finish line as fast as you can.

2. Pinball machine. Although epitomized in "Sonic Spinball," this actually started out in the first "Sonic the Hedgehog" as a special stage. You can bounce Sonic off the walls and hit him with the pedals, but you can also press the jump button to make him do a little hop and control his movements a little more.

3. "From behind." Kind of like #1, only with a different angle, and usually more limited levels. This was the special stage for "Sonic the Hedgehog 2".

(For the record, I consider the special stages in "Sonic the Hedgehog 3"/"Sonic & Knuckles" to be a combination of these last two; you're behind the character, running around a smallish globe, collecting as many blue spheres as you can while avoiding the red spheres that will dump you out of the Zone. It's a little weird, but still nothing revolutionary.)

Then, of course, there was the 3-and-a-half-D "Sonic 3D Blast" which attempted a sort of three-quarter view, typical of RPGs, in a platformer. I played a good amount of "Sonic 3D Blast", but I'll be honest with you, I think this was a terrible idea and I'm glad we haven't seen anything like it since.

Anyway, my point is that I actually like "Sonic Adventure" more than "Sonic Adventure 2" specifically because almost every character plays just like Sonic. Most of the levels involve that same frenetic race to the finish line, and Sonic has more levels to play through than anyone else.

Then "Sonic Adventure 2" came along, stripped the "adventure" away from the game (the world is gone; you just select stages now, and there are cut scenes between them), and decided a.) that everyone should get the same number of levels, and b.) that you should now be forced to play three very different games instead of your nice little blinding race. (I also feel like the controls are a little looser, and it's now way easier to dash right off the edge of a platform and die repeatedly, which is really never a welcome addition in a game where ideally you'd always like to be going as fast as possible.)

Specifically, the "styles" of play are now: Sonic (Speed), Knuckles (Scavenger Hunt), and Tails (Awkward Robot). I'll admit that there was some of the second in "Sonic Adventure", too, but it wasn't nearly as bad there, because--

--being unique is now for the birds. You have six playable characters, but you really only have three, because Shadow the Hedgehog = Sonic, Rouge the Bat = Knuckles, and Eggman = Tails. Their levels are exactly the same, except that those played by Shadow's crew tend to be harder. And while I know everyone likes different things, I challenge anybody to actually claim they liked Tails/Eggman's levels. Yuck. This is the antithesis of Sonic: Plodding very slowly along, shooting down walls, and watching a health meter.

(For some reason, by the way, Tails's mech -- and that's plainly what it is -- can't fly. It can only sort of lamely hover along, sinking slowly. Grumblegrumble.)

And "Sonic Heroes"? Man, don't even get me started. Our categories have changed -- Speed, Strength, and Flying -- but now unique is not only undesirable, it's actively evil: we have not two, but THREE teams of essentially identical characters, Rouge can now fly (where before she could only glide), and adslk;dsl it's just so annoying and unnecessary. I own the game, and I'll probably just -- never finish it.

Bleh.

But I downloaded a whole bunch of Sonic music the other day -- because I've always liked the music, even the horribly cheesy vocal tracks from the "Adventure" games -- and one of the soundtracks I stumbled upon was for "Sonic CD", which I remember hearing about and thinking sounded interesting -- but I didn't have a SEGA CD, so I never played it. (The game is, as I mentioned above, based around Amy Rose... and also around the concept of time travel. Come on, how could that be ANY MORE AWESOME.)

/babble?