"Sonic, the film", the first foray into the cinema of the most famous hedgehog, clearly aims to give a facelift to this great hero of video games. Yet recent history has proven that retro-gaming is now the most viable future for Sonic.

It took him almost thirty years to break into the cinema: Sonic, one of the most popular video game heroes of all time, takes his first steps on the big screen. Sonic, the film , in theaters on February 12, is not a masterpiece but it may succeed in reviving the career of the blue supersonic hedgehog. Because, after some 80 games, including several classics, and more than 100 million copies sold since 1991, Sonic has lost its splendor. So much so that its future could be written ... in the past, through retro-gaming.

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90s star

The comparison is easy but rather fair: in a good sprinter, Sonic started very hard before running out over the long term. Back in 1991. Sega is at the top: its home console, the Mega Drive rivals Nintendo's Super NES. This is the moment that the Japanese firm has chosen to launch its new mascot: Sonic, a blue hedgehog that runs very very fast. Sonic the Hedgehog is automatically included in the Mega Drive pack. The success is immediate. This adrenaline-boosted 2D platform game makes Mario look like a breathless grandfather. The principle is simple: run forward to the end of the level, go through loops, pick up rings, avoid traps, curl up to hit enemies ...

In total, Sonic the Hedgehog sells 15 million copies, it is a planetary box, facilitated certainly by the inclusion in the console packs. The following year, the sequel confirmed this success with more than 6 million games sold. On console, but also on cartoon TV, Sonic is one of the stars of the 90s. His colorful world is filled with striking secondary characters: Knuckles, his red rival who climbs the walls, Amy, his girlfriend armed with hammer, Tails, his friend, a fox capable of flying. Together, they fight against the evil Dr. Robotnik.

From heroes to (almost) zero

Sonic's fate was clear: he had to compete with Mario, the mascot of Nintendo. In this perspective, Sega has also tried to make it follow the same trajectory by diversifying the Sonic games. In addition to the classic platform games, there have been attempts at "party games", that is to say games gathering lots of mini-games to play with friends. But also pinball games, Tetris way, adventure games, in 2D, in 3D (like the amazing Sonic Forces, which propelled the blue hedgehog in the real world)… Sonic even copied Mario Kart with his own games racing car: Sonic Drift .

The Sonic universe has gradually grown, but the cessation in 2001 of the production of Sega consoles, following the disappointing sales of the Saturn and the Dreamcast, dealt a blow to the blue hedgehog. Without a manufacturer to support its development, it lost its strike force. And if Sonic games continued to come out in the 2000s, sales have weakened, with some games not even exceeding a million copies. The hero also had a bad experience with the transition to 3D, the platform format not very suitable.

Retro-gaming to the rescue

As a result, while Mario continued to fascinate young and old, Sonic crossed the desert. Last game of the hedgehog, Team Sonic Racing went relatively unnoticed when it was released in 2018. Friendly but very dispensable, the game is light years away from the fun that comes with its displayed model: Mario Kart 8 . Sonic should not be neglected, simply admit that it now belongs to the genre of retro-gaming, these old-fashioned games which we take pleasure in replaying.

The proof with the last good game stamped Sonic: Sonic Mania , released in 2017 on Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Xbox One. A game tribute to the classics of Mega Drive with deliberately low-cost graphics, 8-bit music, only three playable characters and above all a return to the original playing style: a frantic race in side view. A great success that brought up to date the Sonic of the 1990s by betting on the nostalgia of the players. And for purists, there is the Mega Drive Mini, a reissue of the cult console released last year. For 60 euros, you have the console and twenty games preinstalled, including Sonic the Hedgehog 1 and 2. A real madeleine of Proust!